Boeing is investigating unconfirmed threats by a hacking gang claiming it has access to (and plans to leak) sensitive data.
The cybercriminals, who go by the LockBit gang, claimed that they stole large amounts of data from the company — and they plan to publicly leak and expose it if Boeing doesn’t pay a ransom by Wednesday, November 2.
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The claims were made on LockBit’s website, where they threatened to make the exfiltrated information public.
Yesterday Lockbit ransomware group listed Boeing on their victims list. Boeing is a multinational American company with an estimated annual revenue of $66,610,000,000. They have over 150,000 employees worldwide. Boeing serves both the public and private sectors.
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“For now, we will not send lists or samples to protect the company [but] we will not keep it like that until the deadline,” the warning read. “All available data will be published.”
According to the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, LockBit was “the most deployed ransomware variant across the world” in 2022 and “continues to be prolific in 2023.”
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Boeing told Reuters that the company is “assessing this claim” about LockBit’s threats but did not further specify if the company was in contact with the ransomware hackers.
LockBit did not specify how much they seek in ransom from Boeing, nor did they say what data would be leaked or if it was customer-based.
Boeing has billion dollar contracts with the US Department of Defense, noting that in 2021 alone, nearly 49% of the company’s total revenue came from the federal government.