Malta political party data hack: Personal details of 21,000 people leaked and uploaded to a forum on the dark web
With the Nationalist party refusing to pay ransom when servers were hacked, hackers resorted to leaking stolen personal information
More than 21,000 individuals have had their personal information leaked on the dark web after a group of cyber criminals hacked the PN’s computer system.
The attack occurred on the 19th of April and a statement issued by PN Secretary General Francis Zammit Dimech expressed that the Nationalist Party’s IT system had been hacked as it was accessed without authorisation.
The cyber criminals threatened to leak ‘valuable information’ and would hold back only if the party ‘communicated and cooperated with them’.
With the hackers demanding €5,000 in exchange for not publishing the data, leader of the party Dr. Bernard Grech said that the board will not negotiate with “cyber terrorists or criminals.’
The leak comprises about 1.3 gigabytes worth of data of files displaying names, addresses, ID cards, mobile numbers as well as invoices, payrolls and other reports. The file was specified as Tesserati 2015, suggesting that the people of who’s data was leaked are either current of former paid-up members of the party.
The past three days, hackers uploaded three files all filled with information that is now accessible to the public through an upload to a forum on the dark web.
Speaking to the Times of Malta, the PN said it was “doing its utmost to minimise the impact”.
“The PN trusts that any person or entity privy to such data does not use any data emanating from this hacking attack, for any purpose, and, thus, become an accomplice to a crime.”
This data is believed to have been stolen by the hackers from 2014 or earlier. A police investigation and magisterial inquiry lead by Victor Axiaq has been initiated.
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