Quote:The REvil ransomware gang is known for audacious attacks on the world’s biggest organizations, and its demands for astronomical ransoms to match. But the gang’s latest squeeze on Apple just hours before its splashy new product launch was a bold move, even for the notorious ransomware-as-a-service gang.
 
The original attack was launched against Quanta, a Global Fortune 500 manufacturer of electronics, which claims Apple among its customers. The Taiwanese-based company was contracted to assemble Apple products, including Apple Watch, Apple Macbook Air and Pro, and ThinkPad, from an Apple-provided set of design schematics.
 
REvil was able to breach the Quanta servers, steal the files and hold them for ransom, according to a statement posted on its dark web site—dubbed the “Happy Blog”—in which it said Quanta refused to pay the original ransom for the attack, according to a published report. Once Quanta refused to pay to get the files back, REvil started leaking a set of blueprints for some products to turn up the pressure, adding more would be leaked every day the ransom went unpaid.
 
In an added stroke of criminal ingenuity to ratchet up the pressure to pay, REvil decided to start leaking the ripped off files just hours before Apple’s Spring Loaded event on Tuesday, including schematics for some new iMacs it debuted there. The company took the wraps off a host of new products at the event.