Conti ransomware hits Costa Rica

Systems belongs to the government of Costa Rica were hit with a ransomware attack this week. Conti ransomware gang takes the responsibility and same was confirmed by government officials

In a brief statement by new elected president Quesada said the attack was meant to threaten the stability of the country in a transition situation. Quesada released a video addressing the ransomware attack on Thursday, telling the public that the country will not pay the ransom, which some have said is $10 million.

Quesada said the country was receiving support and assistance from private sector companies as well as the US, Israel and others.

Finance Minister Elian Villegas told Reuters that the group breached the platforms managing customs, which included troves of historical taxpayer information considered “sensitive.”

One exporter union estimated that $200 million was lost on Wednesday due to the bottlenecks caused by a fourth day of outages related to the disruption of the tax and customs platforms.

The Finance Ministry warned the country’s residents to be wary of phishing messages asking to create a new set of passwords

The outgoing president signed a directive that made it mandatory for all government bodies to report security incidents to the country’s Computer Security Incident Response Center. The directive also orders all agencies to patch systems, change passwords, disable unnecessary ports and monitor network infrastructure.