Cyber Crime

Play Ransomware gang has begun to leak data stolen from City of Oakland

The Play ransomware gang has finally begun to leak the data stolen from the City of Oakland in a recent attack.

The Play ransomware gang has begun to leak data they have stolen from the City of Oakland (California) in a recent cyberattack.

Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay Area and the eighth most populated city in California.

The City of Oakland disclosed on February 10, 2023, a ransomware attack, the security breach began on February 8, 2023. In an abundance of caution, the City of Oakland took the impacted systems offline, while they worked to secure the impacted infrastructure.

The Information Technology Department notified local authorities and launched an investigation into the incident to determine the scope and severity of the issue.

The notice published by the City confirmed that its core functions (911, financial data, and fire and emergency resources) were not impacted, however, it warns the public of possible delays from the City as a result of the attack.

In an update provided by the City on February 14, 2023, it declared a local state of emergency due to the effect of the ransomware attack.

On March 3, the City confirmed revealed that an unauthorized third party has acquired certain files from its network and threatened to release the information publicly.

“While the investigation into the scope of the incident impacting the City of Oakland remains ongoing, we recently became aware that an unauthorized third party has acquired certain files from our network and intends to release the information publicly.” reads the update published by the City. “We are working with third-party specialists and law enforcement on this issue and are actively monitoring the unauthorized third party’s claims to investigate their validity. If we determine that any individual’s personal information is involved, we will notify those individuals in accordance with applicable law.”

The Play ransomware group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, started leaking a 10 GB archive containing sensitive data, such as employee information, passports, and IDs.

“Private and personal confidential data, financial information. IDs, passports, employee full info, human rights violation information.” reads the announcement published by the Play ransomware gang on its Tor leak site. “For now partially published compressed 10gb. If there no reaction full dump will be uploaded. Each of the archives can be used independently.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, City of Oakland)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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