Dell’s test lab platform breached by extortion group ‘World Leaks’ – report

Earlier this month, an extortion group called ‘World Leaks’ breached one of Dell Technologies’ (NYSE:DELL) product demonstration platforms and is now trying to extort the company into paying a ransom, BleepingComputer reported.

Dell acknowledged the incident to the media outlet, confirming that the threat actor had breached its Customer Solution Centers platform, which is used to show Dell products and solutions to customers, the report added.

Dell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.

“A threat actor recently gained access to our Solution Center, an environment designed to demonstrate our products and test proofs-of-concept for Dell’s commercial customers,” said Dell to the media outlet.

“It is intentionally separated from customer and partner systems, as well as Dell’s networks and is not used in the provision of services to Dell customers,” Dell added.

“Data used in the solution center is primarily synthetic (fake) data, publicly available datasets used solely for product demonstration purposes or Dell scripts, systems data, non-sensitive information and testing outputs. Based on our ongoing investigation, the data obtained by the threat actor is primarily synthetic, publicly available or Dell systems/test data,” the company added.

World Leaks likely believes it contains valuable data, as it includes sample medical data and financial information, but this data is entirely fabricated, the report noted.

The only legitimate data stolen in the attack is a very outdated contact list, according to BleepingComputer.

The Dell Customer Solution Centers are partitioned from the remainder of Dell’s customer-facing network and internal systems, with customers shown multiple warnings not to upload private data to the labs, the report noted.

When asked about the ransom demand, Dell said it had nothing further to share, according to the repot.

Hunters International ransomware rebranded as World Leaks in January 2025 and has shifted its focus away from file encryption to pure data extortion, the report noted.

In 2023, Hunters International was launched as a ransomware operation and was flagged as a potential rebrand of Hive because of code similarities, the report added.

Since its launch, World Leaks has published data from 49 organizations on its data leak website. However, they have not listed Dell at this time, the report noted.