Boeing looking into hacking gang's ransomware threat

Aerospace giant Boeing said Friday that it is looking into a claim made by the Lockbit cybercrime gang that it had stolen "a tremendous amount" of the company's sensitive data that would be published online if Boeing doesn’t pay ransom by November 2.

The hacking group posted a countdown clock on its website with a message that read, "Sensitive data was exfiltrated and ready to be published if Boeing do not contact within the deadline!" 

"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 group added.

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A Boeing spokesperson told FOX Business, "We are assessing this claim."

Lockbit’s claim didn’t specify how much data it had stolen from Boeing or provide details about the ransom it is seeking for payment.

Lockbit was the world’s most active ransomware group last year, based on the number of victims listed on its data leak blog, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

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CISA reported in June that the Lockbit ransomware gang, which first emerged on Russian-language-based cybercrime forums in January 2020, has made 1,700 cyberattacks on U.S. organizations since then.

Lockbit ransomware has been used to carry out cyberattacks against a wide variety of organizations across critical infrastructure sectors, including financial services, food and agriculture, education, energy, government and emergency services, health care, manufacturing and transportation.

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The Lockbit group has received about $91 million in ransoms paid by U.S. entities since its ransomware was first observed in January 2020.

Reuters contributed to this report.