Taiwanese laptop maker Compal falls victim to ransomware attack, report

Hackers are demanding a ransom of $17 million worth of bitcoin from the world's second-largest laptop maker

Compal Electronics, the world's second-largest laptop maker, reportedly suffered a ransomware attack over the weekend, affecting nearly one-third of the company's systems.

According to Taiwanese media reports, the incident was discovered by the firm's IT staff on Sunday morning.

The IT team then directed all other employees to check the status of their workstations and to take backups of important files where possible.

In a report, BleepingComputer said that it had seen a ransom note that suggested that it was a DoppelPaymer ransomware attack. The report claimed that hackers were demanding the company to pay $17 million worth of Bitcoin within 72 hours, otherwise they would publish unencrypted files on dark websites.

The DoppelPayer ransomware gang has a history of targeting large enterprises. The attacker launch attacks after obtain admin credentials. They use those stolen credential to gain access to a Windows domain controller and eventually spread the ransomware to all network devices.

Some media reports claimed that the security incident potentially caused short-term delays in production for some of Compal clients.

Compal, however, denied reports that it was hit with a ransomware attack.

Compal deputy manager director Qingxiong Lu told United News Network reporters that some "abnormalities" in their office automation system had impacted company's internal network.

He said that the incident did not impact Compal production lines that manufacture laptops for other companies. Lu added that all affected systems would be restored by Monday.

Compal is the world's second-largest original design manufacturer (ODM) laptop maker after Quanta Computer. It is based in Taiwan and builds laptops for several big brands, including Apple, HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo.

Besides laptops, Compal also manufactures tablets, monitors, smart TVs, smartwatches, and other computer peripherals.

The news of the ransomware attack against Compal comes as toymaker Mattel disclosed last week that an attack targeted the company's systems in July and impacted some of its business operations.

Mattel said that after the attack was identified, the company's IT security teams took a series of steps to contain it and to restore impacted machines.

The attack was partially successful as it did result in the encryption of some of Mattel's systems disrupting some operations.

Earlier in April, tech services provider Cognizant also disclosed that it had suffered a Maze ransomware attack, resulting in service disruptions to some clients.

The firm admitted in May that the attack was likely to cost the company between $50 million and $70 million in that quarter, with additional expenses to come later in the year.

A report by IBM found that ransomware attacks had increased markedly in the second half of 2020.