It doesn't take a conspiracy for hacker groups in one country to be inspired by the work of hacker groups in another country.

Likewise, whistleblowers are more likely to emerge if they see other whistleblowers making an impact.

I have predicted it few years ago. You dump the database, zip it, and upload it to your Google Cloud. It's that easy if you are insider. You only need half hour and no one will notice. It is more likly to leak if there are more databases, like citizen db, voters db, social secufity db etc. We will see more leaks in the future.

It's only that easy if you work somewhere with zero network security. Given how mismanaged government IT departments seem to be, that's not unlikely though :)