Sandwich chain Subway has launched an investigation after the notorious LockBit ransomware group claimed over the weekend that it hacked into the company’s systems and stole vast amounts of information.
“The biggest sandwich chain is pretending that nothing happened,” the LockBit gang said in a message posted on its website. “We exfiltrated their SUBS internal system which includes hundreds of gigabytes of data and all financial expects of the franchise, including employee salaries, franchise royalty payments, master franchise commission payments, restaurant turnovers etc.”
The hackers added, “We are giving some time for them to come and protect this data, if no we are open to sell to competitors.”
The cybercriminals posted the message on January 21 and are apparently giving Subway until February 2 to pay a ransom.
“We are exploring the validity of the claim,” a Subway spokesperson told SecurityWeek via email.
Subway has roughly 20,000 locations worldwide and over 400,000 employees, according to the company’s Wikipedia page.
LockBit has been the most active ransomware group, targeting thousands of organizations. The US government reported in June 2023 that the group had targeted 1,700 entities in the US alone, receiving over $90 million in ransom payments since early 2020.
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