Vodafone and Mercado Libre hit by ransomware attacks

Emerging ransomware group Lapsus$, which recently stole proprietary information and employee credentials from Nvidia and exposed the sensitive internal company data, including the software source code of the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer Samsung, appears to have struck two new big names in the technology universe: British telecom multinational Vodafone and South American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre.

According to sources, the Argentine-based online marketplace Mercado Libre admitted in an SEC filing this week that the source code and the data of approximately 300,000 users (out of our nearly 140 million unique active users) were subject to unauthorized access. Lapsus$, apparently based in South America, has claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to publicly expose the Mercado Libre data.

After activating security protocols and carrying out an exhaustive analysis, the company said they found no evidence that their infrastructure has been compromised or that passwords of users, account balances, investments, financial or payment card information have been obtained. It has taken strict measures to prevent further incidents, the company added.

Meanwhile, reports suggest that telecommunication giant Vodafone is investigating claims of a data breach made by Lapsus$ hackers who threaten to leak the source code. A Vodafone spokesperson stated that the company is aware of the claim but cannot comment on its veracity. The company is currently working with law enforcement to investigate the claim.

A Telegram channel run by Lapsus$ published a poll on Monday, mockingly asking users to vote for the company whose data Lapsus$ should leak next, followed by three options. The first option is approximately 200 gigabytes of Vodafone source code. The source codes and databases of Portuguese media corporation Impresa and the Argentinian e-commerce companies Mercado Libre and MercadoPago are the other two options. The poll ends on March 13.

Lapsus$ claims to have accessed 24,000 source code repositories of Mercado Libre and Mercado Pago, as seen by BleepingComputer. Notably, Vodafone has been constantly a target for hackers. In February, its Portuguese unit was hit with a cyberattack that disrupted its services.