Ferrari taken for a spin: Hackers demand ransom after harvesting customer data

Italian automaker Ferrari on Monday informed a significant data breach took place at the company and that customers and their personal data may be at risk. A hacker was reportedly able to infiltrate the IT system of the luxury sports car maker and made a call for ransom in return for the data.

"We regret to inform you of a cyber incident at Ferrari, where a threat actor was able to access a limited number of systems in our IT environment," Ferrari informed in a statement.

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The letter datedMarch 21 added that Ferrari was "recently contacted by a threat actor with a ransom demand related to certain client contact details". However, the Maranello-based company said it was not going to bow in front of the hacker and pay the ransom.

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"As a policy, Ferrari will not be held to ransom as paying such demands funds criminal activity and enables threat actors to perpetuate their attacks."

It added that the best course of action remains to inform the customers about the potential data exposure and the nature of the incident. The customer information exposed to the hacker includes names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers.

Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna tried to calm down the situation by stating that no payment details,bank account numbers and/or sensitive payment information had been accessed by the alleged hacker.

Ferrari added it had been working withthird-party experts to secure its IT systems whilst informing about hiring a leading cybersecurity firm to investigate the matter. The concerned authorities have also been informed.

Watch |World Business Watch: Ferrari says no evidence of system breach

Ferrari's7GB of internal documents hacked

Notably, this is not the first instance when Ferrari has fallen prey to a ransomware attack, Last year in October, internal documents belonging to the brand had been posted online.

ALSO READ | Ferrari falls victim to ransomware attack; 7GB of its internal documents made public

Ransomware gang, RansomEXX, on its Tor leak site claimed that it has breached Ferrari stealing 6.99 GB of data, which not only included internal documents but also datasheets and repair manuals amongst other items.

(With inputs from agencies)

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