Desorden stole 60 GB data from Acer

Acer is the sixth-largest multinational hardware and electronics corporation specializing in advanced electronics technology. Its market share is roughly 6% of all global sales. The company reported a total revenue of about $3 billion in Q4 2020. So it’s no wonder REvil demanded an unbelievable sum of $50 million ransom payment last March, this year. Taiwanese company suffered yet another breach of data this year. The Desorden hacker group published its 60 GB of data on the RAID forum.

What happened this time?

Supposedly Desorden published information belonging to 10,000 Acer customers¹. It was login details of at least 3,000 Acer retailers or distributors in India. Hackers provided sample proof and shared a video of other files from stolen information. According to Desorden, sensitive information includes corporate accounts, customer and financial data. In their own words, those affected are in millions. The group also shared with the media that they had prolonged access to Acer India’s servers. They could do this from mid-September to October 6.

On October 14, 2021 spokesperson for Acer confirmed the second breach of data after the publication of stolen data advertisement on the hacker forum. The company notified its security team and initiated the start of the hackers claim investigation. Acer also reported the incident to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and local law enforcement. The company assured that no material impact on our operations and business continuity was done. Acer Corporate Communications notified its Indian customers of the potential illegal information discretion.

“We have recently detected an isolated attack on our local after-sales service system in India. Upon detection, we immediately initiated our security protocols and conducted a full scan of our systems”, said Steven Chung, Acer Corporate Communications.²

Attack on Acer in 2012

It is worth mentioning that it would be the second time Indian servers have been hacked. The first time happened when in 2012, Maxney from the Turkish hacker group Ajan hacked six Acer India sub-domains, distorting landing pages and stealing 15,000 user credentials.

With regard to the rise in cybersecurity attacks, many specialists in the field are actively discussing new ways of approaching the problem and possible solutions on decreasing the growth of this particular criminal ecosystem. Some of them propose creating the so-called “war rooms” where companies will put together all stakeholders while dealing with operations disruption, litigation and reputational risk. It will be some sort of preparation that businesses should hold in these rooms for future possible attacks. It should make public relations and legal matters easier to handle if an attack occurs.³

1. Read about the abundant leak of data of 3.8 million users from various social networks
2. Official Acer report on the second data breach per 2021
3. https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/ransomware-war-room/608001/