MEXICO CITY — On Wednesday, the president of Mexico announced that the government is looking into a suspected ransomware attack affecting the legal affairs office of her administration. This development follows the emergence of samples believed to be stolen personal information from a database holding details of government employees, which were subsequently shared online.

According to reports from Cybernews, a group identified as Ransomhub has released a sample of seemingly hacked government documents on the dark web. They are reportedly demanding a payment within ten days, although the specific amount remains undisclosed. If the government does not comply, Ransomhub threatens to publicize approximately 313 gigabytes of data.

Typically, such cybersecurity breaches involve infiltrating government or corporate information systems, either impeding access to sensitive data or coercing the targeted entity into making a ransom payment to prevent the exposure of the information. During her morning press briefing, President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the incident and mentioned, “Today they are going to send me a report on the supposed hacking.”

Ransomhub has claimed that the attacked office is associated with government contracts, as well as insurance and financial data. This office, referred to as the presidential legal counsel, manages a wide array of the federal government’s legal concerns that do not involve criminal law.

The leaked files appear to belong to a government employee database, containing personal information. This isn’t the first instance where the presidential office in Mexico has faced a breach of confidential information. Back in January, personal details of 263 journalists who signed up to cover presidential events were leaked.

In that earlier incident, officials from the president’s press office later indicated that the information might have been accessed using the credentials of a previous employee, highlighting the vulnerabilities in the system.