Saint Joseph. The president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, declared a national emergency to counteract the cyberattacks that State platforms have suffered, attributed to the Russian band Conti Ransomware.
Some of the systems – mainly that of the Ministry of Finance – have not yet returned to normal.
The attacks claimed by Conti left the customs systems, the tax payment platform out of order, and forced a preventive blackout of the public sector salary and pension payment system.
What happened “seems to be a consequence of the non-payment of the ransom demanded after a cyberattack that occurred in mid-April. This is what we call a “double extortion” campaign – they’ve been on the rise for some time, and typically involve attackers exfiltrating sensitive data, securely hosting the data on the internet, and using it to blackmail the victim ”, comments Toby Lewis, Global Director of Threat Analysis at Darktrace.
After assuming the government on May 8, Chaves put an emergency declaration on the list of his first actions.
Conti pledged his allegiance to the Russian state shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, Toby Lewis reiterates.