--- title: US government body paid $1M in data-theft extortion description: A US government entity, likely Union County, Ohio, paid approximately $1 million in bitcoin to the Kairos extortion group to prevent stolen files from being... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/us-government-body-paid-1m-in-data-theft-extortion-4hd7w5qat twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: US government body paid $1M in data-theft extortion | daily.dev og:description: A US government entity, likely Union County, Ohio, paid approximately $1 million in bitcoin to the Kairos extortion group to prevent stolen files from being... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/us-government-body-paid-1m-in-data-theft-extortion-4hd7w5qat og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/4hd7w5qat.png og:image:alt: US government body paid $1M in data-theft extortion og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # US government body paid $1M in data-theft extortion **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A US government entity, likely Union County, Ohio, paid approximately $1 million in bitcoin to the Kairos extortion group to prevent stolen files from being published. Notably, no encryption was involved — Kairos operated purely as a data-theft extortion group, reflecting a growing trend where attackers skip ransomware lockers entirely and use stolen data as leverage. The negotiation ran about a month, starting at $3m and settling at $1m. The payment was traced through wallets to exchanges including Bybit, OKX, and a Russian service. Kairos provided a 'proof of deletion' file, though such promises are historically unreliable. The case highlights that encryption-free extortion is rising — Sophos reported only ~50% of 2025 ransomware attacks involved encryption. Defensive recommendations include MFA, monitoring outbound transfers, and network segmentation of sensitive records. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [An unnamed US county – perhaps in Ohio – paid $1M extortion demand to cybercriminals](https://daily.dev/posts/an-unnamed-us-county-perhaps-in-ohio-paid-1m-extortion-demand-to-cybercriminals-6vvlnbwae) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The economics of ransomware 3.0](https://daily.dev/posts/the-economics-of-ransomware-3-0-lblgsdf5w) · CSO Online · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Out of the Crypt: The Evolving Cyber Extortion Economy](https://daily.dev/posts/out-of-the-crypt-the-evolving-cyber-extortion-economy-iefsjqq3n) · Unit 42 · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#crypto](https://daily.dev/tags/crypto), [#ransomware](https://daily.dev/tags/ransomware) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/us-government-body-paid-1m-in-data-theft-extortion-4hd7w5qat) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"US government body paid $1M in data-theft extortion","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/us-government-body-paid-1m-in-data-theft-extortion-4hd7w5qat","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/us-government-body-paid-1m-in-data-theft-extortion-4hd7w5qat"},"datePublished":"2026-07-04T22:42:49.449Z","dateModified":"2026-07-04T22:43:10.419Z","description":"A US government entity, likely Union County, Ohio, paid approximately $1 million in bitcoin to the Kairos extortion group to prevent stolen files from being...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ec0a6d6e8a42077eb515054b09bcd32b?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ec0a6d6e8a42077eb515054b09bcd32b?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/us-government-body-paid-1m-in-data-theft-extortion-4hd7w5qat","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"crypto,ransomware","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"US government body paid $1M in data-theft extortion"}]} ```