Apple Inc has reportedly suffered a ransomware attack at the hands of REvil operators. The hackers have revealed that the tech company has until 1 May to pay the ransom or risk losing confidential drawings and gigabytes of personal data.

“Our team is negotiating the sale of large quantities of confidential drawings and gigabytes of personal data with several major brands,” says REvil operators. “We recommend that Apple buy back the available data by May 1.”

According to The Record, the REvil gang asked for a $50 million ransom demand, similar to the sum they requested from laptop maker Acer last month.

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Denis Legezo, Senior Security Researcher for Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team, says “REvil ransomware has been known since 2019 and it can both encrypt data and steal it. It is distributed on specialised forums “by subscription” (ransomware-as-a-service)”.

Thus, two groups of attackers are involved in the attack: the first finds a breach in the protection of the organisation and injects REvil there and the second creates the malware. After encryption or data theft, a ransom is demanded from the victim. And if successful, it is divided between these groups.

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“An interesting feature is that the malware does not start if certain languages are detected when checking the system language and existing keyboard layouts (this is a large set of dozens of layouts), including Russian.”

An attack like this, unfortunately, is not unique. Legezo goes on to say that targeted ransomware attacks on large companies have become quite common, especially over the past few years.

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“One specific attack, even on an organisation known worldwide, will not change the way things are operated. But we hope that the reaction to this trend will include the introduction of information security events monitoring; complex cybersecurity systems, including for proactive detection of attacks; and enhanced training of employees around cybersecurity rules”.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry