Data breaches are very common these days that most people don't really pay much attention, even if they hit the headlines. But if the target in question is AMD, the main barrier to the chip industry, which is monopolized by 2 specific companies, can be sure that the PC industry will not overlook this event.

News of the breach was reported by PC Mag, referring to x's post, showing claims that the hacking group IntelBroker obtained a significant amount of confidential information from a third-party hosting company used by AMD. What is sold is information about customer and employee databases, future products, specifications, ROM files, source code, firmware, and other sensitive data.

PC Mag also reports that AMD has answered questions about the breach."We are aware of a cyber criminal organization that claims to have stolen AMD's data. We work closely with law enforcement agencies and third-party hosting partners to investigate the claims and importance of data."

In the past, IntelBroker has successfully targeted Europol, EU law enforcement, and UK-based bank Barclays. The group appears to be getting sensitive data, as other sources at X claim to be selling AMD material.

The obvious questions to ask here are how this happened and what are the potential implications for AMD.The former can't be answered right now because amd has not even officially confirmed that the breach occurred, but the fact that it mentions "third-party hosting partners" strongly suggests that the file hosting service was not as secure as AMD expected, and that's the entry point for IntelBroker. It was a great experience.

How damaging this data breach will be depends on how comprehensive the haul is — for example, PC Mag notes that in a screenshot of AMD employee details, all entries are marked as inactive. This suggests that some of the information is no longer relevant, but it may simply be the case that IntelBroker does not want to release "real" material for free.

However, I don't think any file on current or upcoming product specifications will be particularly useful to anyone. Major companies within the PC industry would not enjoy the idea of getting hold of copies, and the average person would not be able to take advantage of technical documents and files. However, certain countries are heavily sanctioned for imports of chips and so on, so any snippets of data that could support the chip business would certainly be of interest to them.

Even if IntelBroker's claims are complete fabrications or the data hauling itself is of little use, AMD and other major players in the chip industry are not sure what third parties will be involved in the future.