A few hours ago, Ferrari released an official note informing, as required by law, that a threat actor had demanded a ransom related to customer contact details which could have been exposed in a ransomware attack.
The type of attack seems to be that of ransomware, i.e. malicious software that has somehow overcome the IT defenses of a department (often due to simple human error) and which manages to collect and encrypt data from a system making it unreadable to the owner, who is then blackmailed to pay a ransom, in cash or other forms.
The note reads:
Maranello (Italy), 20 March 2023 – Ferrari N.V. (NYSE/EXM: RACE) (“Ferrari”) 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. Upon receipt of the ransom demand, we immediately started an investigation in collaboration with a leading global third-party cybersecurity firm. In addition, we informed the relevant authorities and are confident they will investigate to the full extent of the law.”
The problem concerns only a commercial department and does not involve the racing department, the team or its project data. The encrypted data relates to customer contacts and any sensitive data: Ferrari is therefore required to communicate the IT incident due to privacy legislation. In fact, some data could also have been taken and be available to hackers who threaten to publish them if the company does not pay a ransom.
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The note continues by specifying this very point and stating that no ransom will be paid:
“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. Instead, 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.”
Some news media outlets wrongly reported that Ferrari had been asked for customer data as a form of payment. If anything, the data is already available to them and the possibility of making it public is used as a form of redemption. Similar attacks in recent years have been suffered by dozens of huge commercial brands such as Sony, Microsoft, Google and many others.
The last part of the note concerns the necessary reassurances regarding the processing of data and the work carried out to improve the security systems:
“Ferrari takes the confidentiality of our clients very seriously and understands the significance of this incident. We have worked with third party experts to further reinforce our systems and are confident in their resilience. We can also confirm the breach has had no impact on the operational functions of our company.”
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