Cyber attackers give the city of Bourne, MA one week to pay ransom

Ransomware gang RansomHub today claimed responsibility for a January 2025 cyber attack on the town of Bourne, Massachusetts. RansomHub gave Bourne officials one week to pay an undisclosed amount in ransom, or else it will auction off 100 GB of allegedly stolen data.

Bourne officials have not confirmed RansomHub’s claim, but the town and local police did announce that Bourne was hit by a cyber attack on January 11, 2025.

Officials have not disclosed what the stolen data contains or how many people might be affected. We do not know if Bourne officials did or will pay a ransom, how much RansomHub demanded, or how attackers breached Bourne’s IT network. Comparitech contacted Bourne officials for comment and will update this article if it replies.

Who is RansomHub?

RansomHub runs on a ransomware-as-a-service model in which affiliates pay to use the group’s malware and infrastructure to launch their own attacks and collect ransoms. RansomHub is behind high-profile attacks on Rite Aid, Christie’s auction house, Frontier Communications, and the Florida Department of Health. It first started posting organizations it hacked to its leak site in February 2024.

Since then, RansomHub has claimed 116 confirmed ransomware attacks, plus another 560 claims that haven’t been acknowledged by the targeted organizations. RansomHub made 136 of those claims in 2025, 10 of which were confirmed by targets.

Five RansomHub attacks this year were against government entities. In addition to Bourne, RansomHub also attacked the South African Weather Service; the city of Tarrant, AL; the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians; and a government-owned electric utility in the Galapagos.

Ransomware attacks on US government

Ransomware attacks on US government agencies and departments can steal data and lock down computer systems. The attacker then demands a ransom to delete the stolen data and for a key to recover infected systems. If the target doesn’t pay, it could take weeks or even months to restore systems, some data might be permanently lost, and people whose data was stolen are put at greater risk of fraud. Ransomware can disrupt everything from communications to billing, payroll, permitting, and online services.

Comparitech researchers logged six confirmed ransomware attacks on US government entities in 2025, of which RansomHub claimed half. In 2024, we tracked 87 such attacks, which compromised more than 2.3 million records–an increase from 2023.

Other recent such attacks include those on the Laramie County, WY Library System; the city of West Haven, CT; and Anne Arundel County, MD.

About Bourne, Massachusetts

Bourne is a town of more than 20,000 people in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, at the western end of Cape Cod.