Fri May 13 2022

Costa Rica Ransomware Attack

For the first time, hackers seem to be holding an entire country hostage. The Central American country of Costa Rica has declared a state of emergency after a wave of cyber attacks on the systems of the Ministry of Finance, and others. Ransomware group Conti, which has caused numerous victims in the past, claims to be responsible. After the first attack, the group demanded $10 million in ransom money. Costa Rica refused to pay that sum, whereupon Conti released 97 percent of the stolen government data on their website.

Costa Rica's President Rodrigo Chaves officially declared a state of emergency following the cyber attacks. A total of 672 gigabytes of confidential data was stolen. Exactly what data is involved is not yet clear. According to various sources, this would include personal data of Costa Rican taxpayers. In other words, the country is facing a privacy scandal on a massive scale.

Last Sunday, Chaves took the oath as the country's new president and right away he was forced to proclaim some decrees, including that of a state of emergency. "The attack by cyber criminals, cyber terrorists, that Costa Rica is now suffering from, has been declared a national emergency," the president said. "We want to enable our society to treat these attacks as criminal acts," he further sounded.

In addition to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministries of Labor and Social Security and the Child Benefit Administration are said to have been affected by the attack. Conti is now threatening more and more serious attacks if the commutation fee is not paid.

15 million dollar reward

The United States, meanwhile, has offered a $10 million reward for information that can identify and locate the cybercriminals. On top of that, a sum of $5 million (about 4.7 million euros) will be awarded if that information leads to an arrest or conviction. According to the U.S., the cyber attack has a major impact on Costa Rica's imports and exports, as tax and customs platforms have been severely disrupted.

The ransomware group Conti is linked to the Russian cyber crime group Wizard Spider and is believed to be responsible for more than a thousand attacks. The group is mainly targeting medical facilities such as hospitals and research centers and has previously struck in the US, Ireland, the Netherlands and also in our country. In February, for example, a number of companies in the port of Antwerp, including SEA-invest, fell victim to an attack with the ransomware.

The hacker group extorts its victims each time by demanding a ransom in exchange for the stolen data. Costa Rica is so far the first country to declare a state of emergency as a result of a cyber attack.

Attacks have great impact

Cybercrime remains a global problem. For example, by 2021, the fight against cyber attacks will have cost more than $6,000 billion worldwide, some 5,700 billion euros. This was announced by Alessandro Profumo, the head of Italian cybersecurity giant Leonardo.

"The new cyber threat that has grown in the last two years can be seen as 'collateral damage' of the coronapandemic and the accelerated digitalization that has resulted," Profumo said at the Cybertech Europe conference in Rome. "Cyber attacks not only increased in number, they are more sophisticated and have a greater impact," Profumo said.

Last year, one fifth of the attacks were against European targets. Cyber security has therefore become an important topic for the European Commission and the various members of the European Union. Yet Europe is still struggling with a major shortage of cyber specialists. For example, there is a need for at least 200,000 experts, Profumo emphasizes.

Sources