Hackers who breached Western Digital’s systems and stole confidential data in March 2023 have published a series of screenshots of internal emails and other messages from the company. The hackers claim that the screenshots “show the poor efforts of WD to eliminate the incident.” Cybersecurity researcher Dominic Alvieri discovered a total of 29 screen images containing electronic letters, documents, and video conferences relating to WD’s actions after the breach. One screenshot shows a statement from the company, while another shows employees leaking information about the hacking to the media. Western Digital has not commented on the leaked screenshots.
The leak occurred after cybercriminals warned Western Digital on April 17 that they would continue to target the company until the ransom was paid. The hackers behind the attack are known as Alphv Hackers (BlackCat). They claim to have encrypted the company’s files using the Monitoring Program, which was downloaded from the company’s internal network. They also reportedly gained access to the security certificates with the digital signature of WD’s application developers.
“We were able to steal customer data from WD’s cloud storage,” said one of the attackers in an interview with TechCrunch. The hackers have requested a “minimum of 8-digit sum” to be paid as a ransom, but they did not specify what kind of customer data had been stolen or how they had breached Western Digital’s network.
The breach has significant implications for Western Digital and its customers, as sensitive data is now in the hands of cybercriminals. The company must act quickly to mitigate the damage and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.