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Hackers have compromised internal data at Schneider Electric, a France-based energy management firm. Schneider representatives confirmed the breach includes roughly 40GB of internal project management tracking data, as well as “issues and plugins.” But here’s the kicker: The hackers are demanding their ransom in baguettes.
One of the threat actors, who goes by the pseudonym “Greppy” on X (formerly Twitter), heckled Schneider Electric in a post over the weekend. “Hey @SchneiderElec how was your week? Did someone accidentally steal your data and you noticed, shut down the services and restarted without finding them? Now you shut down again but the criminals seem to have taken more juicy data.”
In the hours after their original taunt, Greppy shared a screenshot depicting dozens of lines of code, which they claim are “proof about [the] Schneider Electric breach.” The code appears to involve multiple JIRA project management users and tickets. Greppy told BleepingComputer in a Signal conversation that they’d broken into Schneider’s Jira server using compromised credentials, then scraped 400,000 rows of user data with a MiniOrange REST API. Greppy claimed the resulting windfall contained 75,000 unique email addresses, plus full names for Schneider Electric employees and customers.
Schneider quickly confirmed the breach, saying it was “investigating a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to one of [its] internal project execution tracking platforms, which is hosted within an isolated environment.” According to the company, none of its products or services have been affected by the incident.
But depending on how Schneider handles the breach, it could end up handing over a lot of dough. In a dark web screenshot acquired by BleepingComputer, Grep and their fellow hackers write that they expect the French company to pony up “$125,000 in baguettes.” The ransom will allegedly prevent Grep from sharing the stolen data publicly, though if Schneider acknowledges the breach—which it has—the requested amount will shrink by 50%.
Of course, Grep and their cronies are kidding about using baguettes as currency—because Schneider Electric’s headquarters are in Paris, it’s a cheap joke. Until we find out whether Schneider has paid the ransom, though, we can live in an imaginary world in which cybercriminals are paid off in bread. Mmm, bread.