The LockBit ransomware gang is back in the news with another outrageous extortion attempt. This time around, cybercriminals are demanding no less than $70 million from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), one of the two largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world. This would be, noted one of the Equinix researchers, the fourth highest ransom ever demanded by cybercriminals.
Deadline August 6
Initially accompanied by a very short reflection period of seven days, the countdown deadline has been pushed back to August 6. In case of refusal of payment, in addition to the stolen data, the entry points into the network, identifiers and passwords of the Taiwanese manufacturer will be publishedthreatened the cybercriminals.
According to TSMC’s statements to Security Week, it was one of its contractors, Kinmax Technology, a hardware supplier, that was initially affected. Also Taiwanese, this company specializes in networks, cloud computing, storage, security and database management. Kinmax Technology has indeed confirmed that it was the victim of a computer hack on June 29, which therefore ended up affecting one of its customers by rebound.
Magnitude uncertain
While the data breach has been confirmed by TSMC, the extent of the damage is still unclear. The semiconductor giant thus told TechCrunch that the incident had not “affected business operations or compromised customer information”, the stolen data relating to the default configurations of the installations provided by Kinmax Technology. In accordance with the security protocol provided for in such incidents, the Taiwanese manufacturer and its subcontractor immediately isolated their networks once the intrusion was discovered.
LockBit, one of the most active ransomware franchises at the moment, has also just attacked the port of Nagoya’s IT, one of the largest ports in Japan. The criminal organization, which claimed a total of 1,653 victims in just over three years of activity, was recently singled out in a report by seven cybersecurity agencies (Germany, Australia, Canada, United States, France, New Zealand and United Kingdom).