Luxury car maker Ferrari says hackers stole customers' personal data, demanded a ransom

Italian luxury car manufacturer Ferrari has suffered a cyber attack that has compromised the sensitive personal information of its customers.

In a letter sent to affected customers, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna said that threat actors were able to access “a limited number of systems” in the company’s IT environment.

Soon after identifying the security incident, the company launched an investigation with assistance from external cyber security experts that confirmed no payment details, bank account numbers or other payment information was compromised in the security incident. Threat actors, however, were able to access other pieces of information like names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.

In a notice on its website, Ferrari said that threat actors contacted the company and demanded a ransom. “Ferrari N.V. announces that Ferrari S.p.A., its wholly-owned Italian subsidiary, was recently contacted by a threat actor with a ransom demand related to certain client contact details.

“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,” the company said.

Ferrari said that it has informed relevant authorities who are investigating the security incident and that the breach did not affect its “operational functions”.

“We believed the best course of action was to inform our clients and thus we have notified our customers of the potential data exposure and the nature of the incident.

“We have worked with third party experts to further reinforce our systems and are confident in their resilience,” the company added.

Last year, Ferrari denied an alleged cyber attack that involved threat actors allegedly stealing about 7 GB of confidential company documents.

The cyber attack first came to light when Italian news portal ‘redhotcyber’ reported that the notorious RansomEXX gang posted 6.99 GB of Ferrari’s internal company documents on a dark web forum. The stolen documents included internal documents, datasheets, repair manuals, and a document marked ‘confidential.’

While the documents posted by the ransomware gang suggested that Ferrari indeed suffered a cyber attack, the company had refuted all such claims and said that it has no evidence of any internal network breach or any ransomware deployed in its network. In fact, its business and operations were running as usual.

Commenting on the news, Javvad Malik, lead security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, said, “Ransomware is a cyber pandemic that attacks all organisations regardless of size and vertical. It is why it’s important that all organisations need to put the pedal to the metal when it comes to ensuring they have the right cybersecurity controls in place.

“When it comes to ransomware, most attacks are successful through phishing, taking advantage of poor credentials, or by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities. So as a bare minimum organisation should focus on these avenues of attack,” he added.