Nike said on Monday that it is looking into claims that sensitive company information and manufacturing data was stolen by a known hacking group that demanded a ransom last Friday.
According to World Leaks, a known ransomware group, nearly 189,000 files were taken from Nike and amount to 1.4 terabytes of internal data.
On Friday the group asked for payment from Nike but it is unclear if it was paid. But by Monday, evidence of the claimed hack was posted to the World Leaks website.
Before the sample information was unveiled, World Leaks posted a countdown clock on Friday that gave Nike a deadline to pay and respond to their claims. The clock expired the next day and the group followed through with their warning that some of the data would be published.
Based on the information posted by the group, the sample data appears to be authentic and shows measurements for specific products, retail prices, types of materials, garment testing reports, factory audits, the lifecycles of certain product styles and product presentations.
“We always take consumer privacy and data security very seriously,” Nike said in a statement. “We are investigating a potential cyber security incident and are actively assessing the situation.”
The sportswear manufacturer declined to say what items could have been included in the breach or if it was going to address the ransom demand.
But what has not been revealed is if any customer data was also obtained by World Leaks.
Still, the large collection of files that is likely part of the breach could easily been used by counterfeiters eager to replicate products close to Nike’s specification. And for competitors, a glimpse at the internal structure of Nike’s supply chain would be seen as an unexpected windfall.
The news of hackers attempting to illegally obtain data from Nike comes days after Under Armour said that it was aware of a cybersecurity incident that allegedly occurred in November — impacting 72 million customers.
Internet security website Have I Been Pwned?, acquired a copy of the stolen information from a hacking forum with the compromised data including email addresses, genders, names, dates of birth, zip codes and lists of purchases. The apparent data breach was caused by Everest, another known ransomware group, which demanded payment from Under Armour.
Despite word of the breach showing up in forums frequented by hackers and on social media, Under Armour only acknowledged the matter on Thursday even as some customers receiving credit monitoring alters in December.
