Georgia’s largest county is still repairing damage inflicted on its government a month ago by hackers who shut down office phone lines, left clerks unable to issue vehicle registrations or marriage licenses and threatened to publicly release sensitive data they claimed to have stolen unless officials paid ransom.
The ransomware syndicate LockBit took credit for the cyberattack in late January that temporarily crippled government services in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta. The group demanded payment, threatening to dump data online, including residents’ personal information. It also claimed to have stolen records related to the county’s pending criminal case against former President Donald Trump.
To boost the odds of getting paid, ransomware groups routinely steal data before activating network-encrypting malware. Some cybersecurity analysts questioned whether the Fulton County hackers actually possessed Trump-related files.
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