Pendragon, the Nottingham-headquartered car giant has been hacked by an organised crime gang and held to ransom for over £50m
The gang claim to have lifted more than two million files and in an interview by the Times newspaper with Pendragon, who admitted they had received evidence of the stolen data.
The firm issued a series of security updates on 21st October revealing it was “currently responding to an IT security incident” which reportedly happened a month ago and which has been reported to the National Cyber Security Centre and the police.
LockBit 3.0 has been accused as the organisation behind the cyber breach but has not indicated what their reason is for threatening to publish the 2 terabytes of stolen data.
The perpetrators are said to have demanded $60m in ransom, via bitcoin, or face the consequences of the data being released onto the dark web.
The retailer said it had taken “immediate steps” to contain the incident and revealed it had successfully obtained an interim injunction from the High Court against the group.
Pendragon’s Chief Marketing Officer Kim Costello told The Times the company “will not be paying the ransom demand.”