A town in North Carolina, Apex, had data from about 22,000 residents stolen in an attempted ransomware attack in July 2024, with the data reportedly not appearing on the dark web initially. The data was uploaded to Bublup, Inc., and a temporary restraining order granted by Wake County Superior Court in October 2024 required Bublup to give Apex full access to its data, enabling the town to review and recover information taken in the attack, according to CBS17.
An updated incident statement dated March 30, 2026 indicates that a lot of personal information may have been exfiltrated, including names, social security numbers, driver’s licence numbers, passport numbers, financial and contact details, and other identifiers, with some categories potentially not applying to every individual.
The town’s legal representative, Dan Greene of Octillo Law, said that because the provider was subject to U.S. law, a restraining order could compel the return of Apex’s data, and note that recovery would be more difficult if the information had been stored on overseas systems. It remains unclear whether the town or others deleted all data from the server after gaining full access, and questions persist about whether additional copies or third-party access existed.