Over half of Ohio state capital exposed in massive cyberattack

Threat actors have accessed a treasure trove of sensitive information on over 500,000 residents living in The City of Columbus, Ohio.

The City of Columbus, Ohio’s state capital, currently has over 915,000 residents, meaning that the breach has exposed roughly 55% of the population.

In a breach notification letter filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, a legal representative said that the following information may have been exposed:

• First and last names
• Dates of birth
• Addresses
• Bank account information
• Drivers licenses
• Social Security numbers
• Other identifying information concerning interactions with the City

According to the breach notification, a threat actor attempted to disturb the City’s systems “in a possible effort to deploy ransomware” to extort the Ohio state capital.

While there was no confirmation as to whether cybercriminals deployed ransomware and demanded a ransom payment, the City did say that the threat gained unauthorized access to its IT infrastructure and was then able to access the personal information of over half of the City’s population.

The City also confirmed that despite efforts to contain the threat, it has been reported that the data exfiltrated by the attackers ended up on the dark web.

Cybernews previously reported the attack, in which the Rhysida ransomware group auctioned off more than 6T of sensitive data allegedly belonging to the City of Columbus, Ohio.

The city had alerted Columbus residents to the July 18th attack on social media and then provided an update on its official government website.

The thought-to-be Russian-affiliated criminal group posted about the massive cache of stolen data on the Rhysida dark leak site.

The gang also posted a swathe of samples with its post as proof of the claim.

Cybernews examined the sample files, noting the group had accessed dozens of program files, including access to databases, passwords, cloud data management files, system backup files, employee data, personal messages, payroll information, and even the city’s traffic cameras.