Boeing, a major player in the aerospace industry, says it is “assessing” claims made by the LockBit ransomware group that it has taken a “tremendous amount” of confidential information from the company.
After a new post on the LockBit leak site claimed that sensitive company data had been taken, threatening to disclose it unless Boeing paid a ransom, the US aircraft and defense manufacturer was compelled to reply.
LockBit Imposes Deadline For Data Leak
“A tremendous amount of sensitive data was exfiltrated and ready to be published if Boeing does not contact within the deadline,” reads the post.
“For now we will not send lists or samples to protect the company but we will not keep it like that until the deadline.”
Boeing has a deadline of November 2 to settle an unknown ransom, failing which it runs the risk of this data becoming publicly available.
Though it hasn’t confirmed a possible compromise or released any information about the incident, Boeing has started an inquiry into this issue.
Lockbit’s Targets
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reports that Lockbit was the most active ransomware gang worldwide in the previous year based on the number of victims it claimed on its data leak site.
Typically, their targets were businesses from various key infrastructure systems such as financial services, food and agriculture, energy, education, healthcare, emergency services, manufacturing, and transportation are all included in th
The group, whose eponymous ransomware was first noticed on Russian-language cybercrime sites in January 2020, has carried over 1,700 attacks on US organizations since then, according to CISA in June.
According to the agencies, since January 2020, LockBit has made an estimated $91 million from victims in the US alone.
Lockbit did not disclose the quantity of data it purportedly took from Boeing or the requested ransom amount.
Researchers say for businesses affected by ransomware, getting in touch with their nation’s cybersecurity agencies—like CISA, NCSC, and JPCERT—is the best course of action.
Update: Boeing was removed from the list of victims by the LockBit ransomware group.
Protect yourself from vulnerabilities using Patch Manager Plus to patch over 850 third-party applications quickly. Try a free trial to ensure 100% security.