LAPSUS$ claims major data theft from pharma giant AstraZeneca

Notorious cyber extortion collective LAPSUS$ has claimed a major data theft from global biotechnology and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, including 3 gigabytes of sensitive intellectual property data.

The hacker collective, composed of skilled cyber criminals hailing from the UK, Brazil and elsewhere, has routinely targeted major businesses and corporations since at least 2021, stealing vast amounts of data and using it as leverage to extort victims. The group’s high profile victims include Microsoft, Nvidia, Ubisoft, T-Mobile and Samsung.

Following the arrest of the group’s 16-year-old mastermind, Arion Kurtaj, in Oxford, England, and another prominent teenaged member in Brazil, the group remained dormant for a while before recently emerging with the claimed hacking of the pharmaceutical research and development giant.

The hacker collective claimed on a breach forum that it recently breached AstraZeneca’s network and stole vast amounts of corporate data, including 3 gigabytes of intellectual property and infrastructure configuration files.

The stolen information, as per LAPSUS$’ claims and reported by Cybersecurity News, includes source code for Python scripts and Java Spring Boot applications, private cryptographic keys, authentication tokens related to GitHub and Jenkins CI/CD pipelines, Vault credentials, and Terraform configurations for AWS and Azure environments.

The hacker collective, instead of leaking a portion of the stolen data, has posted teasers of the stolen data along with some screenshots on dark web forums, inviting potential buyers to make payments to access the repositories. LAPSUS$ has set up a secure messaging application where potential buyers can chat with members and negotiate payments.

It is unclear whether the hacker group has contacted AstraZeneca to demand a ransom payment in exchange for the exfiltrated data. At the time of reporting, the pharmaceuticals giant has not commented on the data security incident or notified regulators.