A ransomware group has boasted it has stolen a huge volume of data from the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles and was threatening to publish the material next week, if a ransom payment was not made.
A Housing Authority spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday the agency was experiencing a, "cyber event," that had disrupted its systems.
"We are working diligently with third-party specialists to investigate the source of this disruption, confirm its impact on our systems, and restore full functionality security to our environment as soon as possible," said HACLA's Courtney Gladney.
The message claiming that “hacla.org” had been targeted appeared late last week on a so-called 'dark web' page and said the group had copied 15 terabytes of data from the Housing Authority.
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The message said the data would be published Jan. 12 if no ransom payment was made.
The City's Housing Authority manages public housing developments and other rental assistance programs, collecting personal and financial information from thousands of people who receive or apply for housing assistance.
The data breach was not immediately reported to the California Department of Justice, which maintains a public log of breaches.
