In a brazen act of cybercrime, an ominous ransomware group has allegedly swiped over three thousand designs from SpaceX – Elon Musk’s rocket team – and is now threatening to peddle them off to competitors.
This week, the group LockBit issued a warning to an American billionaire that on March 20th they will commence a public auction of leaked designs.
The collective uttered in a post online that the designs would soon reach potential purchasers, as reported by Britain’s Daily Mail.
“We’ll help speed up the manufacturing of your designs and enable you to fly further,” they shared with Musk.
With the approval of SpaceX engineers, approximately 3,000 drawings are ready for launch! We’ll be launching this auction within a week’s time and providing all relevant data to potential bidders.
Countdown
Furthermore, the page featured a direct countdown to the expiration date of an undisclosed payment that SpaceX was required to make to the ransomware group.
Additionally, posted beneath the article are three supposed “classified” files leaked from Maximum Industries–an assumed SpaceX contractor.
Alongside an engine design and a confidentiality agreement between SpaceX and Maximum Industries, the package included kits for constructing the Starship.
100 million dollars from the victims
According to the United States Department of Justice, LockBit maliciously infiltrated computer systems around the world at the beginning of 2020 and has since extorted more than $100 million from its ransom victims.
Since March 2020, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been eagerly pursuing a group believed to have victimized up to 1,000 individuals around the world.
It’s important to note that the LockBit threats weren’t solely concentrated in the aerospace sector, as Bonta Viva, a cheese maker and Radium Life Technology, a real estate company have also encountered ransom demands.
