MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Wednesday that the government is investigating an alleged ransomware hack of her government’s legal affairs office after what appeared to be examples of personal information from a database of government employees were posted online.
The website Cybernews said a group called Ransomhub had posted a sample of apparently hacked government files on the dark web. Ransomhub is reportedly giving the government ten days to pay an undisclosed amount or it will make approximately 313 gigabytes of files public.
Such hacking attacks usually involve breaking into government or corporate information systems and blocking access to sensitive files or threatening to make them public via file dumps on the Internet unless a ransom is paid.
Asked about the reported hacking during her morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum said: “Today they are going to send me a report on the alleged hacking.”
Ransomhub claimed that the office targeted by the attacks had government contracts, insurance, and financial information. Known as the Presidential Legal Counsel, the office handles many of the federal government’s non-criminal legal matters.
The example of hacked files posted appears to be part of a government employee database of personal information.
It would not be the first time that the Mexican presidency has had to deal with a hack of sensitive information. In January, someone leaked the personal information of 263 journalists who had signed up to cover presidential activities.
In that case, officials from the president’s press office later said the information appeared to have been downloaded using a former employee’s password.
