Foxconn has reported experiencing a cyberattack affecting its North American facilities, with the ransomware group Nitrogen claiming to have stolen 8 TB of data. This incident adds to a troubling trend of cyber threats targeting the electronics manufacturing giant, which has previously faced similar attacks.
Workers at the Foxconn plant in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, first noted a network failure on May 1, with complete Wi-Fi and infrastructure outages occurring by late morning. Employees were instructed to refrain from using their computers and resorted to paper timesheets to log their hours.
In addition to the Wisconsin location, a facility in Houston, Texas, was reportedly also impacted. Nitrogen has released sample files allegedly obtained from Foxconn, though no materials related to Apple projects appear to be included. While Foxconn is a key supplier for Apple, the Mount Pleasant site primarily focuses on producing televisions and data servers.
This recent cyber incident is part of a broader pattern, with Foxconn previously facing a significant attack in 2020 that resulted in data theft and a ransom demand of approximately $34.6 million.