AMD Investigating Breach as Data Appears for Sale

AMD has launched an investigation following claims by a hacker under the alias “IntelBroker” in which he is allegedly “selling the AMD.com data breach” on the cybercrime forum, BreachForums. IntelBroker claims that the stolen data contains both valuable company intellectual property as well as customer and employee information.

IntelBroker is a prolific hacker who has successfully targeted large organizations and companies in the past, including the likes of Acuity, Zscaler, and even Europol.

The full ad on BreachForums reads, "Today, I'm selling the AMD.com data breach. Thanks for reading and enjoy!" The forum post continues with "In June 2024, AMD, a large computing company suffered a data breach. Compromised data: Future AMD products, Spec sheets, employee databases, customer databases, property files, ROMs, source code, firmware and finances."

BreachForums has been the destination of many prominent data leaks. The FBI recently took down BreachForums only for it to reappear a few weeks later.

While it’s common for hackers to exaggerate claims, the scope of the breach would be substantial if verified. It could potentially expose AMD’s company secrets and strategic position to competitors, and the leaked employee databases purportedly contain names, job roles, phone numbers, and email addresses, allowing for targeted phishing attacks.

An AMD spokesperson told SecurityWeek, “We are aware of a cybercriminal organization claiming to be in possession of stolen AMD data. We are working closely with law enforcement officials and a third-party hosting partner to investigate the claim and the significance of the data.” If the breach has occurred, this suggests that the data may have been obtained through a third-party hosting provider rather than directly from AMD.

This is not the first major data breach to hit the semiconductor company. Back in 2020, the company confirmed that a hacker had stolen files related to some of its graphic products. However, the extent of the latest incident seems to be far more significant.