As Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and former President Donald Trump battle it out over the fate of the Georgia election interference case — a new hacker-sized wrinkle threatens to throw the proceedings into further disarray.
Over the weekend, a hacking group calling themselves LockBit threatened to release stolen documents allegedly from Fulton County related to the criminal prosecution of Trump. According to Business Insider, the message was posted in both English and Russian.
The group warned that “the stolen documents contain a lot of interesting things and Donald Trump’s court case that could affect the upcoming US election.”
Fulton County has already been targeted by the LockBit’s hacking efforts — leading to the release of documents on multiple sensitive cases, according to cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs.
The group gave officials till Thursday morning — a deadline which has already passed, to give them an undisclosed amount of money. However, the countdown on their website for the documents to be released was removed on Wednesday.
It’s not certain whether the hackers were paid off, a negotiation was reached, or if another law enforcement agency intervened.
But Fulton County is far from their only target.
According to the U.S Department of Justice, which recently indicted two Russian nationals allegedly connected to LockBit — the hacking group has “targeted over 2,000 victims and has obtained over $120 million in ransom funds.”
The group’s website was temporarily shutdown by an international law enforcement coalition, but quickly re-emerged under the name LockBit 3.0.
With the timer gone, the fate of the Trump documents are up in the air. But with a motion to disqualify Willis from the case still in play — things are anything but calm down in Fulton County.