Acer Confirms Breach After Hacker Offers To Sell Stolen Data

wiredmikey writes: Electronics giant Acer has confirmed getting hacked after a hacker offered to sell 160 Gb of files allegedly stolen from the company's systems. "We have recently detected an incident of unauthorized access to one of our document servers for repair technicians. While our investigation is ongoing, there is currently no indication that any consumer data was stored on that server," Acer told SecurityWeek in an emailed statement. Acer issued the statement after a hacker announced on a popular cybercrime forum that he is selling more than 2,800 files totaling 160 Gb for an unspecified amount of Monero cryptocurrency. The cybercriminal claims the files include confidential slides, staff manuals, confidential product documentation, binary files, information on backend infrastructure, disk images, replacement digital product keys, and BIOS-related information.

Unsurprising that Acer didn't pay up

[linuxguy]

It appears that the hacker was unable to get Acer to pay hush money. Wise move on Acer's part. None of the stolen information contains user data. That makes it a lot less damaging. And paying the scumbag would have provided no guarantees that he was not going to keep a copy and try to sell it later.

When this happens

[jmccue]

How many times must this be said.

If a company has a breach, the fine is 1% of the Company's before tax revenue (or if owned, the parents revenue too) for each person effected up to 65% of total revenue. No appeals and this fine takes precedence over all Chapter 11 Assets . You can bet that will stop these breaches fast, then Companies will be sure to take security seriously.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

If Acer is to be believed (ha ha, but anyway) then no customer data was lost. The shareholders have reason to complain, but everyone else potentially benefits from the release of information. Some Acer users might be able to use some of the files to aid in BIOS hacking or something, e.g. to add support for more CPUs.

Link?

[antdude]

Is there no link to this news?

In other news...

[richardtallent]

Acer still exists?