While we were all enjoying yesterday seeing the news that Apple was presenting us in its «spring-loaded«, In Cupertino meetings were held on a rugged matter totally unrelated to the keynote.
It seems that a gang of hackers has entered the servers of Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese manufacturer of components for Apple, and has obtained the assembly drawings of the MacBook and MacBook Pro. Now the band wants money, but is threatening to publish these plans. What a fabric.
As just published the record, a gang of hackers called REVIL has obtained the construction plans of several Apple devices and threatens to make them public if they do not receive an amount of money. A lifelong blackmail, come on.
These plans appear to have been obtained after an attack on the servers of Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese company that operates as one of Apple's main component factories. In a forum in the Deep Web, the REvil team claims to have obtained various engineering drawings of different Apple devices such as MacBooks and Apple Watch, which are used by Quanta Computer to assemble such products.
Hackers tried to extort the Taiwanese company not to share the files, but the negotiation was unsuccessful. Now, they are threatening Apple directly, asking the Cupertino-based company to pay a sum of money before such stolen blueprints are posted on the Deep Web.
$ 50 million blackmail
As the report explains, the REvil gang asked Quanta 50 million. It is unknown for now how much money they have asked Apple. To prove they have the internal files obtained from the Quanta leak, the group has leaked several screenshots of the files, revealing assembly details of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.
Our team is negotiating the sale of large amounts of confidential drawings and gigabytes of personal data with several major brands. We recommend that Apple buy such data again before May 1.
Although the data is confidential, the engineering schematics obtained by the REvil hacker team do not appear to reveal anything important about the devices in question. Apple has announced that it is "investigating the incident" and has no further details to comment at this time.
The same group has tried to extort money from other companies in the past, such as the laptop maker Acer, in similar actions. The truth is that if some assembly drawings are published, it is not that it is of vital importance. By taking apart a device and seeing how it is built, you can get a clear idea of what these plans can represent. The guys at iFixit could draw them for you without much trouble.