The City of Fort Worth, Texas, faced a second denial from officials regarding a cyberattack by the SiegedSec hacking group, which claimed to have stolen 40GB of data from the Department of Transportation & Public Works. The group shared screenshots of a file transfer service used by the city and leaked the stolen data alongside information from other companies.
While the hackers initially claimed their motive was to punish U.S. states banning gender-affirming care, experts questioned this explanation as subsequent attacks targeted states that had not implemented such bans.
SiegedSec declared their recent attack as their “final” one on the U.S., stating their goal was to make a statement and encourage others to do the same. Fort Worth’s city spokesperson initially acknowledged the investigation but later, the city’s IT department determined that the published data consisted of public information posing no risk of identity theft or financial fraud.
The data came from a website used for managing maintenance activities, including file attachments such as photographs, spreadsheets, invoices, emails, and PDF documents.
While login information was stolen, no sensitive data was accessed or released, and no ransom demands were made.
The SiegedSec hacking group has previously claimed responsibility for breaching government agencies in Arkansas and Kentucky, citing opposition to abortion bans as their motivation.
However, state officials later clarified that the group had simply downloaded publicly available record data. Last week, the group targeted government agencies in Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, either leaking documents or defacing their websites.
The motive behind SiegedSec’s actions seems to involve embarrassing targeted entities and making political statements rather than financial gain or extensive data breaches.
