The City of Oakland has been plagued by a ransomware attack since early February, putting thousands of individuals' sensitive information at risk of getting leaked. Unfortunately, the situation worsened when the group responsible for the attack recently uploaded a massive amount of hacked data to the dark web.
Latest Data Leak Includes Confidential Police Files, City Employees' Records
As reported by Engadget, a second wave of private data from Oakland residents and city employees was leaked on the dark web. The leaked data amounts to 600GB, which includes confidential files from the Oakland Police Department, disciplinary records, city employees' medical documents and communications from city council members.
The ransomware gang called Play was behind the cyberattack on Oakland City's network in February, giving them access to sensitive information of all the city's residents, as well as those people who recently transacted with the city government.
City officials confirmed the second batch of data leaked on the dark web. The first batch of leaks occurred in early March, which included police records and the list of the city staff members, all amounting to 10GB of data.
The ransomware group's cyberattack on Oakland City began in February, disrupting some of the functions of the city government. Due to network outages, the city administrator declared a state of emergency in a bid to restore services as quickly as possible. Some systems became accessible in late February, according to CBS News.
Play is one of the many cybercriminal groups performing ransomware attacks on government agencies and private corporations wherein they encrypt sensitive data from their victim's network. The hacker demands ransom money to decrypt the data, and if no ransom was paid, the hacker would proceed to expose the data online.
Related Article: City of Toronto Suffers Cyber Attack from Clop Ransomware Group
City Government Already Warned About Lack of Cybersecurity Measures Prior to Ransomware Attack
The City of Oakland is exercising all efforts to address the problem caused by the ransomware attack. However, groups affected by the attack believe that the damage was serious enough that they are now demanding accountability from the city government itself.
A union of Oakland police offers filed a case against Oakland City for the damages they incurred from the ransomware attack. They demand that the city government should pay for each police officer's credit monitoring services, bank monitoring services, credit restoration services and identity theft insurance for their protection against the cyberattack, all amounting to $25,000 per officer.
The police union's legal counsel said that the city government had been warned many times in the past regarding the "significant deficiencies in the security of its information technology systems." The city was claimed to not have done anything to address these concerns, which led to the ransomware attack in February.
In a press event to promote the city's downtown businesses, Oakland City Mayor Sheng Thao said that the city government and federal law enforcement are exercising all efforts to resolve the attack.
"We are actively reaching out to anyone whose info may have been compromised, whether or not they work for the City of Oakland," Mayor Thao stated.
Read Also: Ferrari is the Latest to Fall Victim to a Ransomware Attack
