State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Baltimore ransomware attack was early attempt at data extortion, new report shows

StateScoop: The May 2019 ransomware attack against Baltimore that debilitated municipal services for weeks, cost the city government as much as to $18 million and led to the ouster of the city’s chief information officer also included an early attempt by hackers pressuring a victim into paying up by threatening to publish stolen data, according to research published this week by the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

In a blog post Thursday, the company said that two days after the Baltimore hack was reported, the actor behind it posted a message on the dark web threatening to expose or destroy the city’s compromised data, in an attempt to extort then-Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young into paying a ransom of about $76,000.

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