Cybercriminals have made public the data stolen recently from Danish wind turbine giant Vestas Wind Systems, and the company confirmed the leak on Wednesday.
Vestas became aware of the breach on November 19 and it immediately started shutting down IT systems. The company confirmed in late November that it had been hit by ransomware and that the breach resulted in internal files getting compromised.
The firm said the incident did not impact wind turbine operations and nearly all systems had been restored by late November.
In an update shared on Wednesday, the company informed employees and business partners that the attackers obtained personal information and that some of the compromised information has been leaked and possibly offered to third parties.
The investigation carried out by Vestas suggests that the hackers have not specifically targeted personal data. However, the hackers obtained files from Vestas’ internal file sharing systems, which, among other things, contained personal data. Most of the compromised data is “not of a sensitive nature.”
“While the personal data varies between the different files retrieved by the hackers, the majority of the personal data that has been compromised falls within the following types of personal data: names and contact details, including addresses, emails, phone numbers, country of residence, education, training and professional skills, pictures, information related to job applications and CVs, information related to the management of employment, salary information, employment documents (contracts etc.), information on absence and leave, and travel information,” Vestas said.
It added, “In some instances, the investigations have identified that the files retrieved by the hackers contain more sensitive categories of personal data, including information regarding marital status and next of kin, identification documents (passports, birth certificates, work permits and driver’s license), social security numbers, medical certificates, injury reports, and bank account information.”
The company also pointed out that not all employees and business partners are impacted — those confirmed to have been affected will be notified if possible — but the firm advises everyone to remain vigilant.
Vestas has not named the ransomware that was used to target its systems, but cybercriminals who use the LockBit 2.0 ransomware have taken credit for the attack.
The hackers’ Tor-based leak website is inaccessible at the time of writing, but they have apparently published all of the files stolen from Vestas, totaling more than 7,700 files.
LockBit 2.0 operators earlier this year also leaked files allegedly stolen from consulting giant Accenture.
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Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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