Hackers claim to have breached Western Digital’s systems: report

A group of hackers that breached Western Digital’s internal systems and claimed to have stolen 10 terabytes of data is seeking an eight-figure ransom, according to a report by TechCrunch.

Western Digital – a large data storage firm that manufactures computer hard drives, offers cloud storage services and operates data centers – disclosed a network security incident that began on March 26 when an unauthorized third party gained access “to a number of the Company’s systems.”

“Upon discovery of the incident, the Company implemented incident response efforts and initiated an investigation with the assistance of leading outside security and forensic experts,” the company said in a statement on April 2. “This investigation is in its early stages and Western Digital is coordinating with law enforcement authorities.”

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TechCrunch reported that one of the hackers spoke with the outlet in an effort to verify their claims, sharing a file that was digitally signed with the company’s code-signing certificate, which a pair of security researchers validated.

The hacker told the outlet that while they intended to make money through the hack, they opted against using ransomware to infect the company’s files but are demanding a ransom of “minimum 8 figures” to not publish the stolen data.

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The group of hackers has reportedly been attempting to contact the company’s leadership via phone calls and personal email addresses because the company’s email system was shut down amid the incident.

As of the afternoon on April 13, the company’s email system remains down. Western Digital declined to provide a comment for this story.

The hackers and the company declined to tell TechCrunch whether customer data was stolen or what the nature of that data was.

In the statement Western Digital released in the wake of the breach, the company described the data accessed by the hackers in general terms.

“As part of its remediation efforts, Western Digital is actively working to restore impacted infrastructure and services,” the company wrote. “Based on the investigation to date, the Company believes the unauthorized party obtained certain data from its systems and is working to understand the nature and scope of that data.”