By Eliyahu Kamisher
Bay Area News Group
OAKLAND, Calif. — A group of hackers reportedly posted over 120,000 files from BART’s police department that include the names of children suspected of suffering abuse, driver’s license numbers and mental health evaluation forms, according to a report in NBC News.
The hack appeared to be the work of Vice Society, a notorious criminal group that has targeted schools, hospitals, and public agencies around the world with ransomware attacks. Last week Brett Callow, a cybersecurity analyst at Emsisoft, said the group listed BART as the target of an attack.
In a statement, BART spokesperson Alicia Trost said the agency is “investigating the data that has been posted.”
“To be clear, no BART services or internal business systems have been impacted,” she said. “As with other government agencies, we are taking all necessary precautions to respond.”
Trost declined to provide any further information about the hack.
The files, which were posted on a dark web site, included at least six unredacted reports detailing suspected child abuse. The files include personal information of the children and alleged abusers in some cases, according to a review from NBC News.
“It’s often the case that other people scrape the data,” said Callow, the cybersecurity analyst. “Once the data is posted on these sites there is no way of knowing where it will end up or what other people may do with it.”
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