The Metropolis of Columbus, Ohio, has filed a lawsuit in opposition to safety researcher David Leroy Ross, aka Connor Goodwolf, accusing him of illegally downloading and disseminating knowledge stolen from the Metropolis’s IT community and leaked by the Rhysida ransomware gang.
Columbus, the capital and most populous (2,140,000) metropolis in Ohio, suffered a ransomware assault on July 18, 2024, which induced varied service outages and unavailability of e-mail and IT connectivity between public businesses.
On the finish of July, the Metropolis’s administration introduced that no methods had been encrypted, however they have been wanting into the chance that delicate knowledge may need been stolen within the assault.
On the identical day, Rhysida ransomware claimed accountability for the assault, alleging they stole 6.5 TB of databases, together with worker credentials, server dumps, metropolis video digicam feeds, and different delicate info.
On August 8, after failing to extort the Metropolis, the risk actors printed 45% of stolen knowledge comprising 260,000 recordsdata (3.1 TB), exposing a lot of what they beforehand claimed to be holding.
In accordance with the Metropolis’s grievance, the uncovered dataset contains two backup databases containing massive quantities of knowledge gathered by the native prosecutors and police pressure, relationship again to a minimum of 2015, containing, amongst different issues, the private info of undercover officers.
On the day of the information leak on Rhysida’s extortion portal on the darkish internet, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther acknowledged on native media that the disclosed info was neither useful nor usable and that the assault had been efficiently thwarted.
A number of hours later, Goodwolf disputed the Mayor’s declare that no delicate or useful knowledge was uncovered by sharing info with the media about what the leaked dataset included.
In response to this, on August 12, Mayor Ginther claimed that the uncovered knowledge was “encrypted or corrupted,” so the leak is unusable and ought to be of no concern to the general public.
Nonetheless, Goodwolf disputed these claims, sharing samples of the information with the media as an example that it contained unencrypted private knowledge of individuals in Columbus.
“Among the many particulars laid naked have been names from home violence instances, and Social Safety numbers for law enforcement officials and crime victims alike. The dump not solely impacts metropolis staff, but in addition revealed private info for residents and guests going again years,” reported NBC4.
Silencing the researcher
The lawsuit submitted by Columbus alleges that Goodwolf’s conduct of spreading stolen knowledge was each negligent and unlawful, leading to nice concern in the neighborhood.
Furthermore, the Metropolis alleges that the leaked knowledge is not accessible to anyone, as Goodwolf acknowledged, because it was printed on a platform of restricted entry, requiring data to find.
“Defendant’s actions of downloading from the dark web and spreading this stolen, sensitive information at a local level has resulted in widespread concern throughout the Central Ohio region,” reads the grievance.
“Only individuals willing to navigate and interact with the criminal element on the dark web, who also have the computer expertise and tools necessary to download data from the dark web, would be able to do so.”
The grievance notes that Goodwolf’s sharing of regulation enforcement knowledge and the alleged plans to create a web site for individuals to see if their knowledge was uncovered interferes with police investigations.
The Metropolis seeks a short lived restraining order, preliminary injunction, and everlasting injunction in opposition to Goodwolf to stop additional dissemination of stolen knowledge. Moreover, the Metropolis is looking for damages exceeding $25,000.
In a press convention concerning the lawsuit, proven under, Metropolis Legal professional Zach Klein says that the lawsuit isn’t about suppressing free speech, as Goodwolf can nonetheless speak concerning the leak, however is aimed toward stopping him from downloading and disseminating the stolen info.
