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 platformsKabylake (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)) SOURCESSilicon / FSP source code packages for various platformsVarious Development and Debugging ToolsSimics Simulation for Rocket Lake S and potentially other platformsVarious roadmaps and other documentsBinaries for Camera drivers Intel made for SpaceXSchematics, Docs, Tools + Firmware for the unreleased Tiger Lake platformKabylake FDK training videosIntel Trace Hub + decoder files for various Intel ME versionsElkhart Lake Silicon Reference and Platform Sample CodeDebug BIOS/TXE builds for various PlatformsBootguard SDK (encrypted zip)Intel Snowridge / Snowfish Process Simulator ADKVarious schematicsIntel 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.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, data leak)