US chipmaker Intel has launched an investigation into a security breach after 20GB of internal documents with some marked “confidential” or “restricted secret” were allegedly uploaded to MEGA’s file-sharing site online. The data has been released by a Swiss software engineer, Till Kottmann, who said he obtained the files from an unknown hacker who claimed to have compromised Intel IP data earlier this year.
Kottmann got the Intel leaks as he operates a rather famous Telegram channel where he frequently publishes data that has inadvertently leaked online through misconfigured Git repositories, cloud servers, and online web portals from major tech companies. The Swiss engineer said the recent leak reflects the first part of a multi-part sequence of leaks affiliated with Intel.
Kottman, who in the past has been behind other sensitive information data dumps, says that the hacker “breached” Intel, which the company denies. Kottman also said that the files were leaked earlier this year, adding “most of the information here was NOT released ANYWHERE before and are classified as confidential, under NDA or Intel Restricted Secret.” The source says more data will be shared soon, and “the future sections of this leak will contain even juicier and more sensitive material.”
Interestingly, Kottman also states “If you find password safe zips in the release the password is likely either” Intel123 “or” Intel123. “This was not set by me or my source, this is how it was purchased from Intel.”
“We are investigating this situation. The information appears to come from the Intel Resource and Design Center, which hosts information for use by our customers, partners, and other external parties who have registered for access. We believe an individual with access downloaded and shared this data.” Intel responded to the claims of the breach made by Till Kottmann.
The folder appears to have originally been posted by an anonymous source, saying that more is coming soon, and though we don’t know the exact details of the content of the folder, we’ve confirmed that it does exist. In fact, the title of many of the documents is correlated with the list of the leaker’s alleged information.
