Washington State city allegedly hit by ransomware

The BlackCat ransomware gang (ALPHV) has listed the City of Lakewood, Washington, on its data leak site, urging the affected companies to sue the municipality.

Lakewood is a city in Pierce County, Washington, with a population of over 63,000. BlackCat claimed it had breached Lakewood City Council and stolen over 250GB worth of data.

“Because of their misunderstanding and inability to negotiate, we share information with you,” BlackCat said and shared a link to download 252GB of documents.

Cybernews has not reviewed the files. We contacted the City Council to learn more about the alleged incident. We will update the article as soon as we know more.

BlackCat also urged parties that might be affected by the leak in the future to sue the municipality.

“You should not work with them, their structure is also not protected, and the vulnerability has not been fixed. Companies that will be subject to attacks related to them should sue,” the gang said in a blog post.

Recently, a Pennsylvania-based healthcare provider said it was targeted by a ransomware attack from the BlackCat syndicate but refused to pay the ransom.

BlackCat also claimed it was behind last September's breach of Five Guys, a fast food chain.

ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware was first observed in 2021 and was noted for using the Rust programming language. According to the cybersecurity analyst ANOZR WAY, the group was responsible for approximately 12% of all attacks in 2022.