With the presentation of the new iMac, Apple has once again succeeded in providing a real surprise for a long time. And this despite the fact that a ransomware gang wanted to blackmail the company with leaks if the required sum of money is not paid.
A group called "REvil" announced in the run-up to yesterday's Apple event that secret data about upcoming products had been obtained, reports The Record magazine. The fault for this lies with the contract manufacturer Quanta, which has not adequately secured its systems. Various documents on computer systems that are to appear in the near future are said to have been stolen from there - not just those from Apple.
The blackmailers published a total of 21 screenshots to support their claims, including technical drawings for MacBooks. They threatened to gradually publish further documents about the products in question if neither Quanta nor Apple are willing to pay to keep them under lock and key.
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| Threat from REvil blackmailers |
The REvil members turned to Apple when Quanta had rejected claims. The computer company should therefore make a decision by May 1st, after which they want to gradually put the documents online in the event of non-payment. Quanta was charged 50 million dollars for the entire database, but how much was then charged from the individual customers is not known.
Some data are very out of date
The blackmailers tried to put pressure on that an Apple event was imminent - but this took place yesterday, so the deadline on May 1st makes little sense. The public threats also proudly pointed out that they had documents on the Apple Watch and the MacBook Air and Pro models - which only received updates in the fall and would not be the turn now. On the other hand, there was no advance notice of the systems presented yesterday. Accordingly, it can be assumed that Apple will hardly be willing to make payments either.
It remains to be seen what the other affected companies will look like. According to REvil, the database should also include documents from Dell, HP, Amazon, Cisco, Lenovo, Microsoft and many others. Somewhat puzzling is the fact that companies such as Blackberry and Son Microsystems also appear in the list, which in the best case still exist as brands - this may indicate that some of the stolen data is already quite old.
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