BlackBerry is investigating a data breach involving its Cylance cybersecurity unit after reports emerged of data being offered for sale on the dark web.
The data is listed for sale by BreachForums hacker “Sp1d3r” for $750,000. The listing on BreachForums claims to include 34 million customer and employee records and personally identifiable information, prospect lists, partner lists and Cylance user lists.
BlackBerry has since confirmed the breach, stating that the leaked samples provided by the hacker appear to be old marketing data used by Cylance.
“Based on our initial reviews of the data in question, no current Cylance customers are impacted and no sensitive information is involved,” a spokesperson for the company said.
“The data in question was accessed from a third-party platform unrelated to BlackBerry and appears to be from 2015-2018, predating BlackBerry’s acquisition of the Cylance product portfolio.”
BlackBerry acquired Cylance for $1.4 billion in November 2018. Since that time, Cylance has continued to operate as a standalone business, be it that BlackBerry has integrated Cylance features, such as CylanceGUARD, into BlackBerry products, such as BlackBerry AtHoc.
What is missing from the story is where the data was obtained. The hacker Sp1d3r is also offering hacked data from Advance Auto Parts Inc. on BreachForums, with that data linked to an attack on customers of Snowflake Inc. that started in mid-April.
With Sp1d3r offering the data, some may conclude that the Cylance data could be linked to Snowflake. However, BlackBerry has denied this, saying that Cylance is not a Snowflake customer.
