Hacker Group Requests French Giant Schneider Electric Pay Ransom in Baguettes？

French electrical conglomerate Schneider Electric recently found itself potentially at the mercy of hackers. The uncertainty stems from Schneider's lack of confirmation regarding the alleged breach, leaving the validity of the hackers' claims in question.

The group, revealing their exploit on social media platforms like X/Twitter, claimed to have infiltrated Schneider Electric's JIRA system - a tool used for managing large-scale energy management and automation engineering projects. They allegedly accessed 40GB of data related to the company, including details on certain projects, critical business information, work orders, and plugins, along with 400,000 lines of customer data.

JIRA, a platform for tracking engineering project progress and managing related issues, indicates that the hackers did not penetrate Schneider Electric's internal systems directly. Nevertheless, the stolen data seems to be genuine. The hackers demanded a $125,000 ransom from Schneider Electric, not in the usual Bitcoin, but in baguettes.

In a taunting move, the hackers offered to halve the ransom to $62,500 if Schneider Electric publicly acknowledged the data breach, with the payment still required in baguettes.

The feasibility of receiving ransom in the form of baguettes remains questionable, showcasing the perplexing motives of the newly formed hacker group ICA. ICA claims it will not extort ransom from companies that acknowledge the breach within 48 hours of notification.

Schneider Electric responded to the incident, stating it is investigating the cybersecurity event involving unauthorized access to an internally managed project tracking platform in an isolated environment. The company's global incident response team is addressing the issue promptly, assuring that Schneider Electric's products and services remain unaffected.