AMD probes alleged RansomHouse data theft

AMD has disclosed launching an investigation over the RansomHouse cybercrime operation's claims that it was able to steal 450GB of data from a breach against the semiconductor firm in January, according to TechCrunch. After admitting to an attack against major African retailer Shoprite earlier this month, RansomHouse said that it was able to compromise AMD due to the usage of weak passwords across the firm. Stolen data exposed by RansomHouse revealed the use of "Welcome1," "password," and "123456" as employee passwords, as well as other system details and network files. "It is a shame those are real passwords used by AMD employees, but a bigger shame to AMD Security Department which gets significant financing according to the documents we got our hands on all thanks to these passwords," said RansomHouse. Meanwhile, Emsisoft Threat Analyst Brett Callow assured the legitimacy of RansomHouse's claims. "Ransomware operators are untrustworthy bad-faith actors and all their claims should be viewed with skepticism. That said, as far as Im aware, none of the claims theyve made to date have proven to be false," Callow added.