China Fund News reporter Yishan
Following the international chip giant Nvidia was exposed to be attacked by the hacking group Lapsus$ and about 1 TB of data was stolen; recently, South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics was also targeted by the hacking group and a large amount of confidential data was leaked.
Samsung suffered a major data breach
It is reported that the hacking organization Lampsus$ first released a screenshot of C/C++ instructions in Samsung software, and then published the leaked content, saying that it contained Samsung's confidential source code.
The hacking group said the leaked data included: the source code of each trusted applet (TA) installed in the Samsung TrustZone environment for sensitive operations (e.g., hardware encryption, binary encryption, access control), all biometric unlock device algorithms, bootloader source code for all the latest Samsung devices, source code for Samsung activation servers, complete source code (including APIs and services) of the technology used to authorize and verify Samsung accounts, confidential source code from Qualcomm, and more. Add WeChat geyr01 to see more insider articles!
In addition, the hacking group Lapsus$ split the data into three compressed files with a total file size of nearly 190GB and has opened an external download channel, and the organization also said it would deploy more servers to improve the speed of downloads.
After the news was exposed, many people in the industry expressed concern that if the information is accurate, it means that Samsung has suffered a major data breach, which may cause huge damage to the company.
It is understood that obtaining source code allows hackers to find vulnerabilities in device security systems, exposing users to the risk of possible data theft.
Samsung confirmed the data breach
According to The Verge, Samsung Electronics issued a statement on March 7 confirming the data breach, but denying that it would affect the personal data of customers or employees.
Source: Samsung official website
Samsung said the company was recently told of internal data-related security breaches. The security system was strengthened as soon as the incident was discovered. According to the company's preliminary analysis, the leak involved some source code related to the operation of the Galaxy device, but did not include personal information from consumers or employees.
"At this time, the company does not expect any impact on the business or customers. Measures have been taken to prevent the recurrence of such incidents and will continue to serve our customers. Samsung said.
Lapsus$ is a highly classified hacking group that has previously attacked the brazilian health ministry's cyber system and hacked the official websites of a newspaper and a television channel owned by Impresa Group, Portugal's largest media group. In response to the Samsung data breach, the hacking group did not mention the ransom issue at present, nor did it say that it would communicate with Samsung.
Nvidia also suffered
71,000 employee data may have been compromised
It is worth noting that not long ago, the international chip giant Nvidia was also attacked by the hacking group.
At the end of February, Lapsus$ publicly admitted to conducting a cyberattack on Nvidia and already had about 1 TB of data coming to NVIDIA. The hardware folder alone has 250GB with information about "all recent Nvidia GPUs" and more.
It is reported that the organization has previously threatened Nvidia to remove restrictions on its recent graphics card, otherwise it will leak more data. Subsequently, Lapsus$ updated the requirements in early March, adding that Nvidia permanently open-source its GPU drivers (for Windows, macOS, and Linux devices).
It is understood that as the price of virtual currency rises all the way, more and more people have begun to pour into the "mining" army, and there is also a large shortage of graphics cards in the market. In May last year, Nvidia limited some of its performance in order to prevent its graphics cards from being used as "mining". Add WeChat geyr01 to see more insider articles!
However, NVIDIA did not accede to The Lapsus$ request. The company said it had made improvements to its security and notified law enforcement that it was working with cybersecurity experts to respond to the attack. Nvidia had also previously attempted to hack into the hacking group's computer systems, but Lapsus$ subsequently said it had backed up all of its data in advance.
For now, the hacking group says it will sell some of its data for $1 million. According to the email intrusion alert website Have I Been Pwned, Nvidia may have more than 71,000 employees whose email and password hashes were hacked, and this information can help hackers crack passwords.
Notably, Nvidia employs far fewer than 71,000 people, with a total of 18,975 employees in 29 countries, according to the company's 2021 annual report. Therefore, some media speculated that the leaked employee data may also include former employees of the company.
NVIDIA only issued a statement on the leak on March 1, and has not been updated recently. In the statement, NVIDIA said it was concerned about the cybersecurity incident, and in the case of employee information leakage, it has asked all employees to change their passwords, and it is expected that the incident will not interfere with the company's business or the company's services to customers.
In response to speculation that the attack was related to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Nvidia said there was no evidence to prove that it was true.
Deputies and members of the two sessions made suggestions on protecting data security
In fact, network security and data security supervision have become a common concern of all countries, and the government work report also points out that it is necessary to "strengthen network security, data security and personal information protection". During the two sessions, many deputies and members of the two sessions offered suggestions and suggestions for protecting data security.
Lin Yong, deputy to the National People's Congress and member of the Central Committee of the China Democratic National Construction Association, suggested that the ownership, use, processing, control, and income rights of data be clarified, and the relevant rights and responsibilities of the owners of various data rights should be determined; national administrative regulations on information security in the field of non-network data transactions should be formulated; and in the implementation of the "East Numbers and West Calculations" project, strengthen the construction of supporting laws and regulations for the national computing hub nodes and data center clusters, strengthen information security protection, and prevent illegal data leakage.
Zhou Hongyi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and founder of 360, suggested upgrading network security to digital security and creating a digital security emergency response system covering all digital scenarios to meet challenges such as industrial Internet, Internet of Vehicles, smart city, cloud security, data security, and supply chain security. At the same time, the policy aspect of digital security into the new infrastructure, the beginning of the digital construction of all localities will take security into account, and interconnect, mobilize all social forces to participate in the construction of the digital security system, and truly enhance the national digital security capabilities.
Zhou Yunjie, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman and CEO of Haier Group, suggested establishing a data compliance governance system for the smart home appliance industry; developing a data compliance governance platform for the smart home appliance industry as soon as possible; and formulating and revising laws and regulations related to the circulation of data assets.
Zhu Huarong, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Changan Automobile, said that with the rapid development of intelligent and connected vehicles, the privacy and security of automobile data also need to be paid attention to, and it is recommended to improve relevant laws and regulations and strengthen automobile-related data protection to further promote the development of intelligent and connected vehicles.
Huo Tao, a deputy to the National People's Congress and founder and CEO of Guizhou Baishan Cloud Technology Co., Ltd., suggested that the administrative supervision department should set up a comprehensive personal data management platform so that information subjects can intuitively view the collection and processing of personal data, so as to build a security firewall for Internet users' personal information.
Source: IT Reports