FBI’s LockBit Takedown Postponed a Ticking Time Bomb in Fulton County, Ga.
Summary: The FBI's Operation Cronos seized nearly three-dozen LockBit servers, arrested two alleged members, released a free decryption tool, and froze more than 200 cryptocurrency accounts, but LockBitSupp announced on Feb. 24 that the gang's leak sites were back online with a countdown to publish data stolen from Fulton County, Ga., on March 2 unless paid. Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said the county did not pay and would not use taxpayer funds, and the roughly two dozen files LockBit has already released include sealed court records, among them a sealed child abuse record and a sealed motion in the Juwuan Gaston murder trial seeking confidential informant identities.
What you should know: LockBit claims more than 2,000 victims and over $120 million extorted, and its leader says the stolen Fulton County cache includes sealed material that could taint evidence and intimidate witnesses across multiple criminal trials - a consequence that does not stop at the county's network boundary.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
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