Pierluigi Paganini March 05, 2023

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)