Southwire, a prominent Georgia-based cable and wire manufacturer, is suing the Maze ransomware operators following a December 2019 attack in which the defendants stole sensitive information and later published it when their demand for ransom went unfulfilled.
Maze ransomware has grown prevalent since it was detected by Malwarebytes researcher Jerome Segura in May 2019. The malware was also seen in attacks against the city of Pensacola, Fla., and Allied Universal; when the latter missed its ransom payment deadline, Maze operators published 700MB of stolen information and demanded $2.3 million to decrypt its network.
It seems the same pattern occurred in Maze's attack on Southwire, which resulted in the theft of 120GB of data and encryption of 878 devices, Bleeping Computer reports. The operators demanded 850 Bitcoins, or $6 million, in exchange for the information. When Southwire didn't pay, they posted a subset of the company's stolen files on a website they built and controlled.
As a result, Southwire has filed a civil lawsuit in the Northern District of Georgia against the anonymous Maze attackers, referred to in the complaint as John Doe, "for injunctive relief and damages" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the common law of trespass to chattels.
According to the official complaint, Southwire alleges the defendant wrongfully accessed its computer systems and extracted confidential business data and other sensitive data. "Defendant then demanded several million dollars to keep the information private, but after Southwire refused Defendant's extortion, Defendant wrongfully posted ..
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