Boeing refuses to pay hackers $200 million for stolen Data

May 11, 2024 in Business, Companies, Foreign News by Editor

American airplane maker Boeing has drawn a line in the sand, refusing to pay USD 200 million to hackers who stole 43GB of data from its servers. The data in question, which included the company’s IT management software, monitoring logs, and other auditing tools, was stolen last October by the LockBit ransomware gang, which demanded $200 million in ransom to return the data, or else release it to the public.

Boeing declined, leading to the hackers publishing the data. The details came to light in a United States Department of Justice indictment against LockBit’s mastermind, Dimitry Yuryevich Khoroshev.

According to the aviation news site Simple Flying, “Khoroshev has been charged for creating the LockBit group, which has a list of 2,000 victims and surpassed $500 million in ransom payments.” Simple Flying further reports that US law enforcement attempted to take down LockBit earlier this year and that the US has been coordinating an international effort to bring down LockBit, with sanctions being placed against its mastermind from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia.

The data breach at Boeing forced the company to limit several business areas, including parts and distribution. Boeing assured customers that the breach did not compromise flight safety.