On Friday, Boeing Co. announced that it was examining a threat made by the Lockbit cybercrime group. The group claimed to have stolen a significant amount of sensitive data from the aerospace company and threatened to release it online if Boeing did not pay a ransom by November 2.
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The hackers posted a countdown timer on their data leak site, warning that the stolen data was ready for publication if Boeing did not respond before the deadline. They stated that they would not send any lists or samples to protect the company for now, but this would change if the deadline passed.
The group typically uses ransomware to lock victim organizations' systems and extort them by stealing sensitive data. A spokeswoman for Boeing confirmed via email that they were evaluating this claim. According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Lockbit was the most active global ransomware group last year, based on the number of victims it claimed on its data leak blog.
The group's ransomware, first seen on Russian-language cybercrime forums in January 2020, has since launched 1,700 attacks on U.S. organizations, as reported by CISA in June. Neither Lockbit nor Boeing disclosed the volume of data allegedly stolen from Boeing or the ransom amount demanded. Both parties declined to comment further. The hacking group also did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to an address listed on its data leak site.
