An attack by ransomware put the computer systems of the Spanish State Public Employment Service, the SEPE, in check. The attack with the well-known data hijacking virus occurred on the morning of this Tuesday, March 9, local media report.

The infection of the systems would have caused the stoppage of the 710 offices that provide service in person, in addition to the 52 that serve virtually , according to data from Voz Pópuli, to which SEPE sources confirmed the done. But in terms of public statements, the agency has only reported that there is a problem in its systems that has paralyzed its activities.

As a result of the attack, not only the computers in the offices, but also laptops used by employees who are teleworking for the institution. This was stated by the union of public workers in the European country, the CSIF, cited by the same source.

A few months before, employees of the SEPE had been denouncing the poor state of the Computer equipment. Local sources say that, in general, the institution’s computers are very old and cannot cope with the growing demand for their services, given the rising wave of unemployment generated by the emergence of the pandemic. This could have increased vulnerability to such an attack .

While virus ransomware are a way of hijacking computer data, the scope of the attack and the data affected are unknown. The magnitude of the requested ransom or the attackers’ preferred currency is also unknown.

Normally, this type of data hijacking is accompanied by the request for payments with cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin . In fact, a study reported in CryptoNews earlier this year revealed that most of the ransoms of Ryuk, one of the most used ransomware in recent times, went through exchanges large (Binance and Huobi, mainly) to be laundered.

Ransomware and bitcoin ransoms

For At the moment, there is no official confirmation of the type of ransomware used in the attack. However, it is not the first case of data hijacking in Spain using this mechanism. Even by the end of 2019 it had become a threat relatively common among companies and institutions in the country .

As the world digitizes in more and more areas, the number of digital threats is also growing. And in that framework, the ransomware has become one of the biggest enemies for cybersecurity of companies and all types of organizations.

If we review the economic figures, we find scandalous data. At the beginning of last year, there was already talk of more than 144 million dollars paid in ransoms for kidnappings of data in a period of 6 years , according to FBI investigators.

Towards the end of January of this year, in this newspaper we reviewed that the The same organization managed to capture a ransomware operator who had managed to amass a fortune in bitcoin in excess of $ 27 million from an attack on a company in Florida.

In the absence of official confirmation and data on the ransom, it only remains to wait for details about this attack on the SEPE and if there has been any attempt to pay in bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency. At the moment, all the agency’s activities are stopped and the IT team is working so that the systems can operate again.