Intel investigates security breach after the leak of 20GB of internal documents

Intel is investigating reports of an alleged hack that resulted in the theft and leak of 20GB of data coming from the chip giant.

Intel is investigating reports that an alleged hacker has leaked 20GB of exfiltrated from its systems. The stolen data includes source code and developer documents and tools, some documents are labeled as “confidential” or “restricted secret.”

The hackers shared the documents on the file-sharing site MEGA.

The leak was first published by Till Kottmann, a Swiss software engineer, who manage a very popular Telegram channel on data leak. In the past, he shared data on several leaks from major companies including Microsoft, Adobe, GE, Disney, AMD, Lenovo, Motorola, Qualcomm, Mediatek, and Nintendo.

The engineering received the files from an anonymous hacker who claimed to have hacked the company earlier this year, the experts believe that this leak is just a first lot on a larger collection.

Several media outlets independently analyzed the data leak and verified the authenticity of the data.

“Per our analysis, the leaked files contained Intel intellectual property respective to the internal design of various chipsets. The files contained technical specs, product guides, and manuals for CPUs dating back to 2016.” reported ZDNet.

A company spokesperson told SecurityWeek that the data appears to come from the Intel Resource and Design Center. The Center manages information for use by our customers, partners and other external parties.

Below a list of the content included in the leak:

Intel ME Bringup guides + (flash) tooling + samples for various platforms
Kabylake (Purley Platform) BIOS Reference Code and Sample Code + Initialization code (some of it as exported git repos with full history)

Intel CEFDK (Consumer Electronics Firmware Development Kit (Bootloader stuff)) SOURCES
Silicon / FSP source code packages for various platforms
Various Development and Debugging Tools
Simics Simulation for Rocket Lake S and potentially other platforms
Various roadmaps and other documents
Binaries for Camera drivers Intel made for SpaceX
Schematics, Docs, Tools + Firmware for the unreleased Tiger Lake platform
Kabylake FDK training videos
Intel Trace Hub + decoder files for various Intel ME versions
Elkhart Lake Silicon Reference and Platform Sample Code
Debug BIOS/TXE builds for various Platforms
Bootguard SDK (encrypted zip)
Intel Snowridge / Snowfish Process Simulator ADK
Various schematics
Intel Marketing Material Templates (InDesign)

The good news is that the leaked files doesn’t contain sensitive data about customers or employees of the chip maker.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, data leak)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.