Apple supplier Foxconn Hit by Ransomware Attack

Foxconn Technology Group, the company that assembles iPhones for Apple, was hit by a cyber attack in November that affected its operations.

Confirming the incident on Tuesday, 8th Dec, the company in a statement said, “We can confirm that an information system in the U.S. that supports some of our operations in the Americas was the focus of a cybersecurity attack on November 29.”

The attack is believed to have been carried out by a cyber gang which tried to extort $32 million from the manufacturing behemoth. The cybergang hit the company’s manufacturing plant in Chihuahua, Mexico used to assemble and ship electronics to North and South America.

The criminals stole 100GB unencrypted files, encrypted around 1200 servers and deleted between 20-30 TB of backups.

“We encrypted NA segment, not whole Foxconn, it’s about 1200-1400 servers, and not focused on workstations. They also had about 75TB’s of misc backups, what we were able to – we destroyed (approx 20-30TB),” the cybergang told BleepingComputer.

The company is said to be working with technical experts and law enforcement agencies to investigate the full impact of the attack as well as identify the perpetrators.

The gang demanded a 1804.0955 BTC ransom, equivalent to around $32,896,655 according to the current BTC price(1BTC = 18,234.43, via Coindesk).

“The system that was affected by this incident is being thoroughly inspected and being brought back into service in phases,” the company said.

As at the time of writing, Foxconn’s affected website(https://fii-na.com.mx/) is still offline.

However, in a later update, the company said internet connection in the affected facility has gradually returned to normal after the attack.

The Apple supplier also said it had upgraded its information security level and the attack “had limited impact to its operations.”

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