Hundreds of Tarrant County taxpayers' information posted online after ransomware attack, TAD says

Property tax appraisals are going out in the mail this week and for Tarrant County residents, this year the procedure is fraught with uncertainty because of last month's ransomware hack on the Tarrant Appraisal District.

TAD was targeted by a hacker called Medusa which demanded $700,000. When the ransom demand was refused, Medusa followed through on its threats and leaked taxpayers' sensitive data onto the dark web.

Tax consultant Chandler Crouch is a frequent critic of TAD and he said he has found taxpayer information on the dark web, telling our partners at NBC 5 it's hard to believe how bad the Medusa hack was -- it amounts to millions of documents.

The hack still has the TAD appeal portal locked up, A message on the website says "Dashboard/Protest/Value Negotiation access coming soon! Thank you for your patience as we recover from our ransomware event." With that in mind, Tarrant County Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbit said taxpayers have two options: file your appeal by e-mail or drop it off in person at the TAD office.

TAD says the information of about 300 taxpayers was compromised.

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