Boeing says ‘cyber incident’ hit parts business after ransom threat
WASHINGTON听–听Boeing, one of the world’s largest defense and space contractors, said on Wednesday it was investigating a cyber incident that impacted elements of its听辫补谤迟蝉听and distribution听产耻蝉颈苍别蝉蝉听and cooperating with a law enforcement probe into it.
叠辞别颈苍驳听acknowledged the incident days听补蹿迟别谤听the Lockbit cybercrime gang said on Friday it had stolen “a tremendous amount” of聽 from the US planemaker that it would dump online if聽叠辞别颈苍驳听didn’t pay听谤补苍蝉辞尘听by Nov. 2.
The Lockbit听迟丑谤别补迟听was no longer on the gang’s website as of Wednesday, and it didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.聽叠辞别颈苍驳听declined to comment on whether Lockbit was behind the cyber incident it disclosed.
“This issue does not affect flight safety,” a聽叠辞别颈苍驳听spokesperson said. “We are actively investigating the incident and coordinating with law enforcement and regulatory authorities. We are notifying our customers and suppliers.”
Boeing‘s听辫补谤迟蝉听and distribution听产耻蝉颈苍别蝉蝉, which falls under its Global Services division, provides material and logistics support to its customers, according to the company’s 2022 annual report. Some webpages on the company’s official website that had information on the Global Services division were down on Wednesday, with a message that cited technical issues.
“We expect the site to be back up soon,” the pages said.
Lockbit was the most active global听谤补苍蝉辞尘ware group last year based on the number of victims, and it has听丑颈迟听1,700 U.S. organizations since 2020, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
The hacking group typically deploys听谤补苍蝉辞尘ware on a victim organization’s system to lock it up, as well as stealing sensitive data for extortion.
It’s unclear what data Lockbit may have stolen from the company. Brett Callow, a听谤补苍蝉辞尘ware expert and听迟丑谤别补迟听analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, said that while organizations may pay cybercriminal gangs when demanded听谤补苍蝉辞尘, that doesn’t guarantee that data won’t be leaked.
“Paying the听谤补苍蝉辞尘听would simply elicit a pinky promise from LockBit that they will destroy whatever data they obtained,” Callow said. “There would, however, be no way of knowing for sure that they actually had.”
The loss of military-related information would be “extremely problematic”, he added.聽叠辞别颈苍驳听did not comment on whether any defense-related data had been impacted in the cyber incident.
The CISA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the聽叠辞别颈苍驳听statement. – Reuters
