Hackers stole a lot of data, about 10 terabytes, from Western Digital Corp, the company behind San Disk’s digital storage. Now, they want a large amount of money, in the millions of dollars, to return the data. This is called a ransom payment, where the hackers demand payment in exchange for returning the stolen data. Western Digital is negotiating with the hackers to try to resolve the situation.
The hackers say they have control of important things belonging to Western Digital, like a special certificate that’s used to sign software. They also claim to have private phone numbers of company executives and data from a back-office system called SAP. To prove they really have this data, they showed some screenshots and shared phone numbers and files with security researchers. This means they’re holding Western Digital’s data hostage, and they want the company to pay a large ransom to get it back.
The hackers are threatening to release the stolen data if Western Digital does not pay the ransom. It’s not clear if Western Digital will pay the money or not because the company is working with experts and law enforcement to figure out what to do next. This is a difficult situation for the company, as paying the ransom could encourage more hackers to attack in the future, but not paying could mean the data is released to the public, causing further harm.
Earlier this month, Western Digital had a data breach. They called it a “network security incident” that happened on March 26. Because of the breach, the company’s cloud network was down for 10 days. The service is now back up and running, but this new extortion attempt is causing more problems for the company.
Western Digital has not said anything about what the hackers are claiming or whether customer information was affected. According to TechCrunch, the hackers are planning to release the stolen data on a website belonging to a group that uses ransomware, called ALPHV. The hackers say they are not part of ALPHV, but they know them and think they are good at what they do. This means the data could be made public soon, which would be a big problem for Western Digital and its customers.
