Australian beverage company Lion says it has found no evidence that hackers have stolen information from its systems, but the hackers claim they have and are threatening to leak it unless the company pays up.
Lion, a major supplier of beer and milk in Australia and New Zealand, revealed earlier this month that manufacturing processes and customer service were disrupted following a ransomware attack.
In an update shared on June 26, the company said it restored many key systems at breweries and dairy and juice sites.
“To date, we still do not have evidence of any data being removed. As we indicated last week, it remains a real possibility that data held on our systems may be disclosed in the future. Unfortunately, this is consistent with these types of ransomware attacks,” the company stated.
“Our expert teams are continuing to do all they can to investigate this further and as previously stated, if we do identify any cases of data being taken or misused, Lion will contact the affected individuals directly,” it added.
While Lion has not shared any technical information about the attack or the ransomware, the operators of the ransomware known as Sodinokibi and REvil claim to have breached the company’s systems.
On their website (a link was provided by digital risk protection company Digital Shadows), the Sodinokibi operators say Lion has 5 days to contact them and pay up, “otherwise all your financial, personal information your clients and other important confidential documents will be published or put up for auction.”
The hackers have posted several screenshots allegedly showing the data stolen from the beverage giant’s systems. One of the screenshots shows the name, email address and phone number of Zane Zuo, who according to his LinkedIn profile is a business solution designer at Lion.
Other screenshots show that some of the folders are dated June 18, 2020, which suggests that the attackers may have continued stealing data from Lion more than a week after the company discovered the breach and started responding to the incident. Another screenshot shows that the data obtained by the hackers could be dated as far back as 2009.
SecurityWeek has reached out to Lion for comment and will update this article if the company responds.
Symantec reported earlier this week that the threat actor behind Sodinokibi has been observed targeting point of sale (PoS) software, but it’s unclear if the goal was to steal payment card data or if they simply wanted to encrypt files associated with these types of products.
Lion is not the only major Australian company hit recently by ransomware. Shipping giant Toll disclosed a ransomware attack last month and the hackers started leaking files after the company refused to pay up.
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