- Hackers breached the systems of the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office
- 337,000 LAPD files stolen, including personnel and internal affairs data
- Archives published by the “World Leaks” group, then deleted
Cybercriminals reportedly broke into the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office and stole sensitive data belonging to the Los Angeles Police Department.
THE Los Angeles Times reported that “a trove of sensitive LAPD records,” including officer personnel files and documents from internal affairs investigations, had been intercepted by cybercriminals.
Approximately 337,000 records measuring 7.7 terabytes were reportedly accessed, which also included disciplinary histories and misconduct complaints, prior documents from civil cases, officers’ personal health information and witness interviews from criminal investigations.
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The LAPD released a brief statement confirming the findings, noting: “The LAPD is aware of an incident within the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office in which unauthorized individuals gained access to a digital storage system. The digital storage contained discovery materials from civil cases previously adjudicated or settled by the LAPD. The breach did not involve any LAPD systems or networks,” it said.
“We take this incident very seriously and are working with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office to access affected files to understand the full extent of the data breach. LAPD is committed to protecting its sensitive personnel and investigative information.”
Meanwhile, a hacker collective calling itself World Leaks has published the entire archive on its data leak site. Emma Best, founder of transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, confirmed the authenticity of the breach and later said the files had been removed from the website.
“I don’t see him on the World Leaks site anymore, even though I’m logged in. I don’t know what happened,” she said.
Usually, cybercriminals demand ransom payment in exchange for data deletion. Neither World Leaks nor the LAPD have confirmed that anything like this happened.
World Leaks is a spin-off of an earlier group called Hunters International, infamous for hacking healthcare, manufacturing and technology giants.
Via TechCrunch
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