Italian carmaker Ferrari says it is going to refuse to pay a ransom after an unspecified menace actor broke into its IT techniques and stole buyer information
By
Alex Scroxton, Security Editor
Published: 21 Mar 2023 11:59
Supercar producer Ferrari has warned prospects that their private information could also be in danger after a restricted variety of its IT techniques have been compromised and data exfiltrated by an as-yet unspecified menace actor.
The Maranello, Italy-based agency reached out to these concerned on Monday 20 March. In a letter to prospects – a verified copy of which has been seen by Computer Weekly – chief govt Benedetto Vigna mentioned the uncovered information included names, addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
Vigna reassured prospects that based mostly on the present state of the investigation, the organisation was assured that no buyer monetary information, nor information on any of their automobiles, had been compromised.
In a public assertion, a Ferrari spokesperson mentioned the organisation had been contacted by the menace actor with a ransom demand associated to “certain client contact details”. The organisation didn’t determine the menace actor concerned.
“Upon receipt of the ransom demand, we immediately started an investigation in collaboration with a leading global third-party cyber security firm. In addition, we informed the relevant authorities and are confident they will investigate to the full extent of the law,” mentioned the spokesperson.
“As a coverage, Ferrari won’t be held to ransom as paying such calls for funds felony exercise and allows menace actors to perpetuate their assaults.
“Instead, we believed the best course of action was to inform our clients and thus we have notified our customers of the potential data exposure and the nature of the incident.”
The organisation mentioned it took the confidentiality of its purchasers – lots of whom are among the many wealthiest people on this planet – very critically, and could be working with safety specialists to bolster its techniques.
“Ferrari will not be held to ransom as paying such demands funds criminal activity and enables threat actors to perpetuate their attacks” Ferrari spokesperson
It added that the incident has had no affect on day-to-day operations. Nor does it seem to have affected the working of its Formula One championship workforce, which, having had a poor begin to its 2023 season, is at present languishing within the constructors’ standings.
The F1 workforce companions with a number of tech corporations, together with Amazon Web Services, HCL Software and Palantir Technologies. Its present cyber safety associate is Bitdefender, and it has traditionally had a powerful relationship with Kaspersky.
At the time of writing, no identified ransomware operator or affiliate had claimed duty for the incident.
Rob Bolton, vice-president of EMEA at safe entry service edge (SASE) specialist Versa Networks, mentioned that thus far, Ferrari was hitting all the appropriate buttons when it got here to incident response finest apply.
“First of all, it should be praised that Ferrari have come out and confirmed they will not pay any ransom demand. It is essential that organisations in similar situations do the same,” mentioned Bolton.
“Paying ransom demands is no guarantee that stolen data will be returned, and it will only help fund future ransomware activity.”
However, he mentioned, even having rejected the extortion try, Ferrari prospects can be involved over who could also be in possession of their information, and what they could do with it.
