The Washington DC police department said on Monday that it has called in the FBI to investigate a breach of its IT systems.
The acknowledgement came after Russian ransomware gang Babuk claimed to have stolen sensitive data, including informant details, that it is threatening to share with criminal gangs unless the force pays a ransom, according to reports.
The Babuk group posted on a dark web site that it had "downloaded a sufficient amount of information from internal networks" and shared screenshots of the 250GB of data it claims to have taken. It gave the police three days to contact them or "we will start to contact gangs in order to drain the informants".
The DC Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that there was no indication that any police operations were affected, and the department did not immediately say whether it had been hit by ransomware.
"We are aware of unauthorised access on our server," the department statement said. "While we determine the full impact and continue to review activity, we have engaged the FBI to fully investigate this matter."
The US, in particular, has seen significant disruption due to ransomware attacks with the hack on the DC police department just one of 26 incidents just this year. Hackers also were also causing damage long before the pandemic with government agencies and towns in Florida being completely shut down.
RELATED RESOURCE
The business guide to ransomware
Everything you need to know to keep your company afloat
The Babuk group is also growing its reputation with a spate of 'successful' attacks across the globe. In February, the group targeted Serco, the firm behind the UK's NHS Test and Trace system.
The gang is said to be a relatively 'green' and unsophisticated organisation. According to PwC, the code the group originally used contained errors that kept it from fully compromising certain targets.
"We assess that, due to a disregard for error checking, Babuk would fail to execute altogether in some environments," the firm said, according to CyberScoop.
-
Thousands of exposed civil servant passwords are up for grabs onlineNews While the password security failures are concerning, they pale in comparison to other nations
-
Global PC shipments surge in Q3 2025, fueled by AI and Windows 10 refresh cyclesNews The scramble ahead of the Windows 10 end of life date prompted a spike in sales
-
The number of ransomware groups rockets as new, smaller players emergeNews The good news is that the number of victims remains steady
-
Teens arrested over nursery chain Kido hacknews The ransom attack caused widespread shock when the hackers published children's personal data
-
NCA confirms arrest after airport cyber disruptionNews Disruption is easing across Europe following the ransomware incident
-
Cyber professionals are losing sleep over late night attacksNews Hackers are biding their time and launching attacks when businesses can’t respond
-
Prolific ransomware operator added to Europe’s Most Wanted list as US dangles $10 million rewardNews The US Department of Justice is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Volodymyr Viktorovych Tymoshchuk, an alleged ransomware criminal.
-
Jaguar Land Rover “did the right thing” shutting down systems to thwart cyber attackNews The attack on Jaguar Land Rover highlights the growing attractiveness of the automotive sector
-
Ransomware attack on IT supplier disrupts hundreds of Swedish municipalitiesNews The attack on IT systems supplier Miljödata has impacted public sector services across the country
-
A notorious hacker group is ramping up cloud-based ransomware attacksNews The Storm-0501 threat group is refining its tactics, according to Microsoft, shifting away from traditional endpoint-based attacks and toward cloud-based ransomware.
