Following the cyberattack that targeted the computer servers of the town hall of Sartrouville (Yvelines) last week, a preliminary investigation was opened, AFP learned from the Paris prosecutor’s office. The section for the fight against cybercrime of the Paris public prosecutor’s office took up this investigation under its national jurisdiction.
The investigations were entrusted to the judicial police (PJ) of Versailles, said the prosecution, for fraudulent access and maintenance in an automated data processing system, extortion in an organized gang and association of criminals.
Hackers were able to access a lot of exfiltrated sensitive data
On the night of August 16 to 17, the computer servers of Sartrouville, a town located about fifteen kilometers northwest of Paris, found themselves paralyzed after an attack by a group of hackers using ransomware called “Medusa”. .
In a press release published Thursday, the town hall assured that the impact of the attack had been “limited” thanks to the rapid intervention of the technical teams which made it possible to “contain and neutralize the incident”. According to a complaint against X filed on August 17 by the town hall with the police, the hackers managed to access a lot of sensitive data from the municipality and exfiltrate it.
The town hall does not plan to negotiate or pay the ransom
The document notably mentions financial data (payments to companies, community budget, etc.), personal data of municipal officials (RIB, copies of identity documents, or even CV), medical data from the center municipal health service, information on nurseries and schools in the city or even the file of vulnerable people. The initial estimate of the material damage of the piracy is 200,000 euros.
According to an article on the site Numerama published on Wednesday, the hackers gave the town hall until August 31 to pay a ransom of 500,000 dollars (460,000 euros), failing which they threaten to publish all the stolen data on the darknet. Some information such as payslips or identity documents of elected municipal officials have already been put online, still according to Numerama. The town hall clarified in its complaint that it did not plan to pay the ransom or to negotiate.