Ransomware gang publishes files stolen from DC police department

StateScoop reports that threat actors associated with the Babuk malware claimed they have stolen more than 250 gigabytes of data from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., which appeared on a ransomware leak site on Monday. The stolen data include arrest records, police reports, internal memos and documents which have been shared with other authorities, such as the FBI. According to intelligence company Recorded Future’s Allan Liska, the attack was unlikely to be an intentional attack on the nation’s capital. The incident was possibly a crime of opportunity since the malware does not have a history of targeting organizations in the public sector like school districts and local governments, and uses phishing schemes and looks for vulnerabilities, such as open Remote Desktop Protocol ports, Liska added. “They’re scanning for open RDP or something like that, and bam, they hit the police department,” said Liska. Liska noted that Babuk has “improved a lot” and is “a lot more difficult to detect because it can look like the admin moving around the network.