Columbus mayor sues man who makes him look bad

[Exterous]

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said on August 13 that a “breakthrough” in the city’s forensic investigation of the breach found that the sensitive files Rhysida obtained were either encrypted or corrupted, making them “unusable” to the thieves. Ginther went on to say the data’s lack of integrity was likely the reason the ransomware group had been unable to auction off the data.

Shortly after Ginther made his remarks, security researcher David Leroy Ross contacted local news outlets and presented evidence that showed the data Rhysida published was fully intact and contained highly sensitive information regarding city employees and residents. Ross, who uses the alias Connor Goodwolf, presented screenshots and other data that showed the files Rhysida had posted included names from domestic violence cases and Social Security numbers for police officers and crime victims. Some of the data spanned years.

On Thursday, the city of Columbus sued Ross for alleged damages for criminal acts, invasion of privacy, negligence, and civil conversion. The lawsuit claimed that downloading documents from a dark web site run by ransomware attackers amounted to him “interacting” with them and required special expertise and tools. The suit went on to challenge Ross alerting reporters to the information, which ii claimed would not be easily obtained by others.

“Only individuals willing to navigate and interact with the criminal element on the dark web, who also have the computer expertise and tools necessary to download data from the dark web, would be able to do so,” city attorneys wrote. “The dark web-posted data is not readily available for public consumption. Defendant is making it so.”

"Your data is safe because its on the dark web" is a special kind of idiotic stance. I hope the Streisand effect hits hard. And that one day we'll actually have real penalties for organizations that don't take security seriously enough

City of Columbus sues man after he discloses severity of ransomware attack

Mayor said data was unusable to criminals; researcher proved otherwise.

arstechnica.com

 

[iRONic]

Mayor be imbibing too much of the states legal rec weed!

 

[brycejones]

The city attorney should be sanctioned for this shit as well. The whole thing is retaliation for showing the emperor has no clothes. I hope Ross is able to extract a large payment over this bullshit. Unfortunately it will probably be the city that pays for it.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

"Only individuals willing to navigate and interact with the criminal element in physical space, who also have the criminal expertise and tools necessary to retrieve data from meatspace, would be able to do so"

See how easy that was? Sue the police.