Schneider Electric's stolen data leaked on dark web
Cybercriminals claim that Schneider Electric has refused to pay a ransom in baguettes.
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Cybercriminals claim that Schneider Electric has refused to pay a ransom in baguettes.
In November, a ransomware gang named Hellcat claimed to have breached Schneider Electric’s infrastructure. The group said it gained access to the company’s Atlassian Jira environment, allowing them to steal data.
The company confirmed that its developer platform was breached, and its response team was investigating the incident.
Cybercriminals first posted a bizarre ransom demand of $125,000 in baguettes on November 7th. The threat actor said the ransom demand would decrease by 50% if the company’s CEO publicly acknowledged the breach.
However, on December 29th, cybercriminals published the stolen data on their data leak site, claiming that the company refused to pay a ransom. The post on the dark web consists only of one gigantic (40GB) file that allegedly contains company data on projects, issues, plugins, and over 400,000 rows of user data.
Cybernews has reached out to Schneider Electric for a comment, but a response is yet to be received.
The Hellcat gang has previously leaked data allegedly belonging to Jordan’s Ministry of Education, the College of Business in Tanzania, and private communications from the Pinger app.
The current incident marks Schneider Electric's third significant cyberattack in the past 18 months. In February 2024, the Cactus ransomware gang claimed responsibility for stealing 1.5TB of sensitive data from the company.
Last year, Schneider Electric acknowledged that it was targeted by the Cl0p ransomware group during the MOVEit zero-day campaign.
Ransomware attacks are on the rise, causing companies and organizations massive headaches. According to reports, the average ransom demand has climbed to $1.3 million, with certain variants requesting as much as $4.3 million for a decryption key.
Although it is strongly advised not to pay ransomware demands to avoid fueling the criminal economy, the average financial loss after negotiations still amounts to $353,000.