Unreleased MacBook Schematics Stolen in $50M Ransomware Attack on Apple Supplier

Going public with the demands is a risky strategy, as now Apple’s response will be publicly known.<p>If they pay the ransom, it sends a message to everyone with access to confidential Apple manufacturing materials that they are sitting on millions of dollars of ransom material.<p>I would guess that Apple will refuse to engage in order to avoid incentivizing everyone in their manufacturing chain from trying the same stunt. Instead, they’ll go to great lengths to investigate the leak and punish the manufacturer responsible for leaking the material.<p>Schematics don’t hold much an exceptionally high value given that they could be reverse engineered from the product by sufficiently funded individuals. However, it would represent a leak of the details of upcoming products which is something Apple goes to great lengths to avoid.

Why would these schematics hold such a high value? Apple will do a new generation of laptops, maybe they&#x27;ll modify the form factor a little bit, maybe they&#x27;ll update some internal components, new processor. Who could benefit from knowing the exact changes, why would Apple care (millions-of-dollars-care) if they are leaked a few months in advance?

The author of this Ransomware [0] scrounged through the trash heaps and smoked cigarette butts. He walked 10 km one way to the school. He wore the same clothes for six months. In his youth, in a communal apartment, he didn’t eat for two or even three days.<p>By the way, the guy donates money to open source projects.<p>Netflix probably interested in his story. He is like Digital Version of Pablo Escobar.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;therecord.media&#x2F;i-scrounged-through-the-trash-heaps-now-im-a-millionaire-an-interview-with-revils-unknown&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;therecord.media&#x2F;i-scrounged-through-the-trash-heaps-...</a>

These documents appears to be just PDF schematics and electrical specifications, not even the real files that can be opened by Cadence Orcad or Allegro, anybody making a minimum wage in Quanta&#x27;s production line have access to some of those files. If you are patient it is quite trivial to accumulate those documents and the tactic quite lame.<p>As someone who has audited Quanta in my previous jobs, I am constantly being surprised that these documents are leaked so infrequently. A &quot;Project&quot; in Quanta start with the customer send in their schematics and mechanical drawings to the Quanta &quot;R&amp;D&quot; engineers so they could redraw it to enable production in Quanta, aka EVT; then it is DVT for multi-sourcing of components and compatibility and EMC compliance, then it is PVT. Engineers usually transform the documents to PDF files and upload to the company&#x27;s document center, production line operators will download those PDF files and copy it here and there, maybe even with a USB thumb drive to copy it to a production station running Windows 98 and Adobe Reader with no network access. The factories get so many projects that the leaked document maybe is for a product that already died in EVT.<p>It is also amazing to me that those PDF iPhone Schematics always leak to the 3rd party repairman after sometime it is announced, apparently there is an invisible food chain. But for this one, REvil is simply trying to brand themselves instead of the ransom.

Maybe if these docs get released it will help independent repair shops.

Better strategy: flood the market with accurate looking but incorrect schematics. Dilute the thieves.

The docs seem to show the return of the SD card slot on the 13 inch macbook pro as well as a new charging port--likely the return of MagSafe.

If you want your random paid isn’t being discreet about it a better plan?

Looks like another corporation will soon be joining the crypto buying frenzy. That’s bullish news for Bitcoin!