Boeing investigating cyber incident it says hit parts business
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Boeing declined to comment on whether Lockbit was behind the cyber incident.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON - Boeing, one of the world’s largest defence and space contractors, said on Wednesday that it is investigating a cyber incident that impacted elements of its parts and distribution business and cooperating with a law enforcement probe into it.
Boeing acknowledged the incident days after the Lockbit cybercrime gang said on Friday that it had stolen “a tremendous amount” of sensitive data from the US plane maker and that it would dump it online if Boeing did not pay ransom by Nov 2.
The Lockbit threat was no longer on the gang’s website as of Wednesday, and it did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boeing declined to comment on whether Lockbit was behind the cyber incident it disclosed.
“This issue does not affect flight safety,” a Boeing spokesperson said. “We are actively investigating the incident and coordinating with law enforcement and regulatory authorities. We are notifying our customers and suppliers.”
Boeing’s parts and distribution business, which falls under its global services division, provides material and logistics support to its customers, according to the company’s 2022 annual report.
Some webpages on the company’s official website that had information on the global services division were down on Wednesday, with a message that cited technical issues.
“We expect the site to be back up soon,” the pages said.
Lockbit was the most active global ransomware group in 2022, and it has hit 1,700 US organisations since 2020, according to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa).
The hacking group typically deploys ransomware on a victim organisation’s system to lock it up, and it also steals sensitive data for extortion. It is unclear what data Lockbit may have stolen from the company.
Boeing’s parts and distribution business, which falls under its global services division, provides material and logistics support to its customers, according to the company’s 2022 annual report.
Mr Brett Callow, a ransomware expert and threat analyst at the cyber-security firm Emsisoft, said while organisations may pay cyber-criminal gangs when demanded ransom, that does not guarantee that data will not be leaked.
“Paying the ransom would simply elicit a pinky promise from LockBit that they will destroy whatever data they obtained,” Mr Callow said. “There would, however, be no way of knowing for sure that they actually had.”
The loss of military-related information would be “extremely problematic”.
Cisa did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Boeing statement. REUTERS
