A hacker collective says it has records pertaining to the Georgia lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and has vowed to make them public.
At one time, the organization demanded payment of a ransom by Saturday, as reported by Business Insider.
But the group declared on Saturday that payment is due by Thursday at 8:49 a.m. Eastern time.
No documents had been made public as of Thursday morning, and there was no indication that a ransom had been paid.
The gang claimed to have files it had stolen that were outside the purview of law enforcement, but it was unclear how much money they were asking for.
Officials stated that 34 servers were taken down that day.
The Department of Justice indicted two Russians on the same day that it claimed were involved in hacking.
The two accused were allegedly involved in over 2,000 cases involving over $120 million in ransomware payments since 2000, according to the indictment.
“For years, LockBit associates have deployed these kinds of attacks again and again across the United States and around the world. Today, U.S. and U.K. law enforcement are taking away the keys to their criminal operation,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release posted on the department’s website.
“And we are going a step further — we have also obtained keys from the seized LockBit infrastructure to help victims decrypt their captured systems and regain access to their data. LockBit is not the first ransomware variant the Justice Department and its international partners have dismantled. It will not be the last,” Garland said in the release.
In a statement, the group claimed that it was singled out due to its knowledge of the Georgian cases against Trump.
“And we are going a step further — we have also obtained keys from the seized LockBit infrastructure to help victims decrypt their captured systems and regain access to their data. LockBit is not the first ransomware variant the Justice Department and its international partners have dismantled. It will not be the last,” Garland said in the release.
The statement read, “In my opinion, I will vote for Trump because the situation at the border with Mexico is a nightmare and Biden ought to step down—he is a puppet.”
The statement added, “The negotiations stalled, and if not for the FBI attack, the documents would have been released the same day.”
The message claimed, “I need to attack the.gov sector more often and more; the FBI will be forced to show me weaknesses and vulnerabilities and make me stronger after such attacks.”
Fulton County has a plan in place to deal with any release of personal data, according to Atlanta News First.
