Two U.S. Police Department Networks Attacked by Ransom Gang, One with Data Leaked on Dark Web

Following the recent ransomware attack on the Washington DC Metro Police Department, two similar incidents occurred, one of which has been officially recognized by the victimized police department. In the two incidents, highly sensitive data and documents related to police investigators, suspects, informants, conviction evidence, and identities of agents suffered catastrophic leaks.

The first is the Azusa Police Department in California, a force responsible for covering 50,000 people. In a recent press release , the department admitted that it had suffered a ransomware attack, which led to the leakage of sensitive data. The types of data exposed include social security numbers, driver's license numbers, California ID numbers, passport numbers, military ID numbers, financial account information, medical information, health insurance information, and information or data collected through the use of automatic license plate recognition systems.

Citizens of Azusa are urged to be vigilant about incoming communications, obtain copies of credit reports on a regular basis, and report any suspicious circumstances to the police immediately. The attack actually took place in March 2021, but the blackmail group decided to make the matter public only a month later. They released police records, investigation details, and patrol reports.

The second case involved the Clearfield Borough Police Department in Pennsylvania. The " Marketo leaked data marketplace " extortion portal publicly stated that 247GB of data in the police station was stolen. While providing evidence of 28.6MB of data, the ransomware group posted a mocking message on the dark web site:

Here they are, the defenders of justice and order, typical American cops with doughnuts and coffee, chilling outside their cars. Or are they not? This and entire work of Clearfield Borough Police Department can be now judged by anyone. So much fascinating material - mugshots, reports, financial reports, incident data, photos of accidents and bodies, audio and videofiles of cases and interviews. Defenders of justice, can you protect all confidential information from prying eyes? Or are you willing to do the work "live" and put your documents on the blog every day? It doesn't seem to make any difference, your data is in public domain anyway. Enjoy watching it for all concerned.

Clearfield police have not confirmed any attacks against them, but the 28.6MB packet shared by the crooks seems to contain detailed details. This is an example of why extremely sensitive data entities should always be stored in encrypted form. In this way, even if you don’t know when a hacking occurred, the leaked data will be useless, and the damage caused by the leak can be mitigated.

The dark web address of "Marketo leaked data marketplace": http://marketojbwagqnwx.onion