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An Ohio court has enacted a temporary restraining order against a cybersecurity researcher who revealed details about a substantial ransomware incident affecting Columbus, casting doubt on the city’s assertions regarding the nature and extent of the data breach.
The judicial decision was made in Franklin County following an event on July 18, where Columbus faced an aggressive ransomware attack that resulted in the theft of approximately 6.5 terabytes of sensitive information from municipal databases. The malicious group known as Rhysida claimed responsibility for this assault and initially sought to auction off the compromised data starting at around $1.7 million worth of bitcoin. Following an unsuccessful auction by August 8, when no buyers emerged for their offerings, Rhysida decided to release roughly 45 percent of the pilfered information via their platform on the dark web—a site accessible solely through specialized TOR browsers.
The Dark Web: Is It Truly Out of Reach?
On August 13, Mayor Andrew Ginther announced what he termed a “breakthrough” regarding forensic inquiries into this incident, explaining that many confidential files exfiltrated by Rhysida were either found to be encrypted or damaged, rendering them effectively “unusable” for further exploits. He suggested that difficulties in selling this information could explain why Rhysida’s attempts to monetize it ultimately flopped.
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