Security News > 2023 > October > CDW data to be leaked next week after negotiations with LockBit break down

CDW, one of the largest resellers on the planet, will have its data leaked by LockBit after negotiations over the ransom fee broke down, a spokesperson for the cybercrime gang says.

LockBit did not respond to questions relating to what its original ransom demand was or what CDW offered in the negotiations.

A day later, instead of making Royal Mail International's stolen data public, LockBit posted the full negotiation history between it and the company in the form of a downloadable chat log.

Towards the end of the negotiations, where Royal Mail appeared to stall LockBit for as long as it could by saying it was waiting for its board to decide on whether to pay the discounted ransom fee, LockBit grew frustrated with the tactics and published the data after days on non-responsiveness from Royal Mail.

In typical fashion, the countdown timer spent days reaching zero, and what was published wasn't the data it claimed to have stolen from the company, but instead a response to claims that the group was linked to the sanctioned cybercrime outfit Evil Corp. "The PR stunt was likely orchestrated by LockBit because an association of their activities to Evil Corp could have financially devastating consequences for their operations," said ReliaQuest in a blog post.

At the time, Thales's public statements repeatedly denied evidence of an IT intrusion, but on November 10, 2022 - three days after LockBit promised to publish its data - Thales confirmed that data had been stolen and published.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/10/06/cdw_lockbit_negotiations/