REvil ransomware attack hits Computer giant Acer hit for $50 million

On the 18th of March 2021, the infamous ransomware gang, REvil announced on their data leak site that they had breached Acer. The group also provided evidence of the attack by publishing images of allegedly stolen files, these documents included financial spreadsheets, bank balances, and bank communications. The threat actors are demanding for $50,000,000, according to BleepingComputer, which is the largest known ransom to date.

When Acer was contacted about this, they refused to confirm or deny that they had experienced a REvil ransomware attack. Instead, they released a statement saying:

“Acer routinely monitors its IT systems, and most cyberattacks are well defensed. Companies like us are constantly under attack, and we have reported recent abnormal situations observed to the relevant law enforcement and data protection authorities in multiple countries.”

Apart from the post on REvil’s dark web leak site, “Happy Blog”, there was no other evidence of the attack which means the ransomware attack only hit and disrupted the company’s back-office network instead of disrupting the company’s production systems.

Cyber Security experts that were looking into the attack, speculate that the REvil may have exploited possible critical vulnerabilities in Acer’s Microsoft Exchange server on its domain during their attack.