A group responsible for hacking Fulton County, Georgia's municipal websites is threatening to publish documents related to the criminal case against former President Donald Trump unless it gets paid a ransom.
LockBit's deadline for the ransom to be paid is 8:49 a.m. ET on Thursday, Business Insider reported.
The group initially set a Saturday deadline for the payment, according to the cybersecurity reporter Christopher Krebs.
CBS News reported Jan. 30 that Georgia officials said the court and other systems in the state's most populous county were hacked, interrupting routine operations.
In a message posted in both English and Russian on Saturday, LockBit said the stolen documents "contain a lot of interesting things and Donald Trump's court cases that could affect the upcoming US election."
Last week, the Department of Justice announced it had joined the United Kingdom and international law enforcement partners in the disruption of the LockBit ransomware group.
DOJ unsealed an indictment accusing two Russian nationals of being involved in the group's hacking operations.
"The FBI decided to hack now for one reason only," according to a message from LockbitSupp, Forbes reported, "because they didn't want to leak information from Fulton County."
The group, however, "is now regrouping," according to Krebs. Business Insider reported the group appeared to become operational again over the weekend.
On a new website, LockBit posted a message claiming it had backup copies of documents taken from the Fulton County government's website.
"Personally I will vote for Trump because the situation on the border with Mexico is some kind of nightmare, Biden should retire, he is a puppet," the message said, Business Insider reported.
It's not known how much money LockBit is demanding. Dan Schiappa, the chief product officer at the cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf, told Business Insider that the hacking group's demands are often negotiated in private.
The Associated Press reported that LockBit is dominated by Russian speakers and does not attack former Soviet nations. The syndicate provides clients with the platform and the malware to conduct attacks and collect ransoms.
LockBit has targeted more than 2,000 victims, received more than $120 million in ransom payments, and made ransom demands totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the DOJ.
Fulton County's computer systems were hacked Jan. 27 and some of its services were down for weeks.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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