Hackers from the Play group, responsible for the ransomware attack on the city of Oakland, California, have leaked a second batch of data on the dark web, according to officials. The latest dump of information, which totals 600GB, reportedly includes confidential files belonging to the Oakland Police Department, council members’ communications, and medical records of city staff.
The initial leak in March, which was comparatively small at 10GB, included police records and rosters of city employees.
The February attack, which forced the city to declare a state of emergency, prompted the shutdown of its computer network, with many non-emergency services becoming unavailable.
Oakland closed some buildings and warned of delayed responses to non-urgent complaints, with access to some systems only being restored at the end of the month. The Oakland police union is seeking $25,000 per officer for damages resulting from the leak, while also calling on the city to strengthen its security.
Play has been linked to several attacks, including on Rackspace and the Belgian city of Antwerp. While the city has not revealed what the hackers are demanding, the release of a second wave of data suggests Oakland is not considering paying the ransom.
Although the data leak increases the risk of fraud, acceding to ransomware attackers’ demands may encourage more attacks in the future.
