Computer giant Acer hit by $50 million ransomware attack

[Porthos]

Computer giant Acer hit by $50 million ransomware attack

Computer giant Acer has been hit by a REvil ransomware attack where the threat actors are demanding the largest known ransom to date, $50,000,000.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[sapphirescales]

Why does this not surprise me? Acer/eMachines computers are cheap garbage. Why would anyone expect their internal security to be up to snuff?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I used to think the same about Acer computers...because at the time all I knew were the cheap ones sold at the big chain stores back in the days when big chain stores were sorta becoming a thing. (like the Aspires)

Years ago, for 1 year, I worked for a software place that installed their point of sale software on computers, and sending/setting up at the stores. They used Acer computers....but their little know business models...which you rarely saw anywhere else. They were actually good solid biz grade workstations and servers. Made right along side IBMs workstation...because back then, Acer had a branch that ODM's computers for other brands to be sold under the other brands names. They spun off that division....which evolved into Wistron around the year 2000. They used to make a lot of components for IBM.

Acer also bought up Texas Instruments laptop division jn the late 90's, and made some pretty decent biz grade laptops at a lower budget. I sold many of those years ago, notably for some budget nursing home/healthcare clients...and they proved reliable in that heavy use environment.

Acer makes a lot of monitors...they even had a division called BenQ for that. And they're decent monitors.

But many people only know Acer by association of their popular and cheap consumer computers from the big chains.

 

[sapphirescales]

@YeOldeStonecat Apples and oranges, my friend. You can't take a look at a $1,500 Dell Latitude and assume you're going to get the same quality from their $169 Chromebook. Business grade machines are always higher quality because it's in the manufacturer's best interest not to sell garbage to big business. Acer's consumer grade stuff is still garbage. Even their "Nitro" gaming laptops are crap. I've got one on the bench right now. The plastic is cheap, the parts are low quality, etc. In other words it's disposable garbage. Just because they sell better quality stuff to their business clients, which is in their own interest, doesn't mean they're not a crap brand.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

No debate here that most consumer grade computers are disposable garbage. Regardless of the brand, Dell Smell, HP, Lenovos, whoever.
I know biz grade is higher quality for many reasons...that's the workspace I've worked in for my nearly 30 years in this IT gig. Including those mid range Dell Lats..to the high end Lenovo Thinkpad T/X series.

 

[lan101]

Are there any "gaming" laptops that aren't junk? Seems like more and more people are wanting those...of course no one wants to spend the right amount of money typically lol. I figure anything below $1000 is complete trash. Some of those Asus ones in the 800 dollarish range get some decent reviews...but didn't know if those MSI ones or anything on the typical newegg list was decent quality. As in maybe lasting someone a good 5-7 years.