Mexico City — Mexico’s president said Wednesday that the government is investigating an alleged ransomware hack of his administration’s legal affairs office after samples of personal information from public employee databases were posted online.

A group called Ransom Hub has posted a sample of apparently hacked government files on the dark web, the cybernews website said. Ransomhub is reportedly giving the government 10 days to pay an undisclosed amount or it will make about 313 gigabytes of files public.

Such hacking attacks usually involve breaking into government or corporate information systems. and either blocking access to sensitive files or threatening to make them public via file “dumps” on the Internet, unless a ransom is paid.

Asked about the alleged hacking at her morning press briefing, President Claudia Scheinbaum said, “Today they are going to send me a report on the alleged hacking.”

Ransomhub claimed that the office targeted in the attacks had government contracts, insurance and financial information. Known as the Presidential Legal Counsel, this office handles many of the federal government’s non-criminal legal matters.

A sample of the hacked files posted appears to be part of a government employee database with personal information.

This is not the first time that the office of the President of Mexico has faced the hacking of sensitive information. In January, someone leaked the personal information of 263 journalists who had signed up to cover presidential activities.

In that case, officials from the president’s press office later said the information appeared to have been downloaded using a former employee’s password.