A group of hackers are holding the city of Augusta Ga. hostage via a ransomware attack:
Addressing an outage that’s crippled city of Augusta computer systems all week, Mayor Garnett Johnson said Friday the city isn’t in contact with hackers who say they’re holding the city’s data hostage.
Although a cybercrime group has claimed responsibility for a cyber-attack, Johnson said the city has gotten no ransom demand.
“At this time, Augusta is not in communication with this group,” he said.
He said the outage was definitely due to an “unauthorized actor,” however.
Bleeping Computer says that BlackByte ransomware is the ransomware that was used in this attack:
BlackByte has posted the City of Augusta on its extortion site, claiming responsibility for the recent attack.
The threat actors have even created a pop-up to highlight their latest victim to all site visitors, warning the city’s administration that “the clock is ticking” and asking them to make contact.
BlackByte claims to hold troves of sensitive data stolen from Augusta’s computers and has leaked a sample of 10GB of data as proof of their breach.
The leaked documents seen by BleepingComputer contain payroll information, contact details, personally identifiable information (PII), physical addresses, contracts, city budget allocation data, and other types of details.
It is important to underline that the origin and authenticity of the leaked data have not been verified.
The demanded ransom for deleting the stolen information is $400,000. BlackByte ransomware gang also offers to resell the data to interested third parties for $300,000.
The attack has somewhat crippled the computer operations of Augusta. And the city is trying to put its spin on this situation:
It will be interesting to see what they do to address this situation and restore normal service as soon as possible.
Augusta Ga. Pwned By Hackers Who Are Bragging About The Pwnage Online
Posted in Commentary with tags Hacked on May 28, 2023 by itnerdA group of hackers are holding the city of Augusta Ga. hostage via a ransomware attack:
Addressing an outage that’s crippled city of Augusta computer systems all week, Mayor Garnett Johnson said Friday the city isn’t in contact with hackers who say they’re holding the city’s data hostage.
Although a cybercrime group has claimed responsibility for a cyber-attack, Johnson said the city has gotten no ransom demand.
“At this time, Augusta is not in communication with this group,” he said.
He said the outage was definitely due to an “unauthorized actor,” however.
Bleeping Computer says that BlackByte ransomware is the ransomware that was used in this attack:
BlackByte has posted the City of Augusta on its extortion site, claiming responsibility for the recent attack.
The threat actors have even created a pop-up to highlight their latest victim to all site visitors, warning the city’s administration that “the clock is ticking” and asking them to make contact.
BlackByte claims to hold troves of sensitive data stolen from Augusta’s computers and has leaked a sample of 10GB of data as proof of their breach.
The leaked documents seen by BleepingComputer contain payroll information, contact details, personally identifiable information (PII), physical addresses, contracts, city budget allocation data, and other types of details.
It is important to underline that the origin and authenticity of the leaked data have not been verified.
The demanded ransom for deleting the stolen information is $400,000. BlackByte ransomware gang also offers to resell the data to interested third parties for $300,000.
The attack has somewhat crippled the computer operations of Augusta. And the city is trying to put its spin on this situation:
It will be interesting to see what they do to address this situation and restore normal service as soon as possible.
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