The Spanish State Employment Service (SEPE) has been subjected to a cyber-attack, leading to its communications systems being suspended in 100s of offices & delaying 1,000s of appointments.
Reports suggest that this agency, in charge of managing Spain’s unemployment benefits. was hit by the Ryuk ransomware.
Autonomous Body
SEPE is an “autonomous body” in Spain that manages & controls unemployment benefits. The cyber-attack occurred during an already arduous time, when SEPE is dealing with huge numbers of requests for unemployment benefits, as the pandemic has forced companies globally to make employment cuts.
The Spanish trade union Central Sindical Independiente y de Funcionarios (CSIF), has commented that the attack has affected SEPE’s 710 offices. The union said that the cyber-attack was ransomware – however, further details about the attack, including its origin & the ransom demand, are unknown.
“The SEPE is being subjected to a security incident during which the availability of its information & communication systems has been affected,” observed a translation of a message on the SEPE’s website.
Mitigating Impact
“The first urgent actions carried out have been carried out as quickly as possible & with the main objective of containing the incident, isolating &, therefore, mitigating its impact on the SEPE systems.”
Comments Business Insider Spain, the cyber-attack is the work of the Ryuk ransomware. This group has targeted organisations over the 2020-2021, e.g., Universal Health Services.
Manually Process
CSIF said the incident has delayed the management of “100s of thousands” of appointments in Spain for those attempting to apply for unemployment benefits. SEPE said that it is still working to manually process unemployment benefit requests & it is not necessary to renew requests.
“Currently, work is being done with the aim of restoring priority services as soon as possible, among which is the portal of the State Public Employment Service & then gradually other services to citizens, companies, benefit & employment offices,” explained SEPE.
Technological Investment
However, CSIF alleged that SEPE has been ‘slow’ when it came to technological investment for months & relying on applications & computer systems with an “average age of about 30 years.”
“From CSIF, we regret the disruption that this problem is causing in users who had their appointment scheduled for today, both in person & online, who are being duly informed of the incident,” observes CSIF.
To date, experts like Jigar Shah, VP at Valtix, suggested that organisations need to be “forward-thinking” when it comes to securing their infrastructure & fending off ransomware threats.
Tactical Response
“A lot of people are overly focused on the tactical response after a ransomware incident happens,” Shah explained. “Often, paying the ransom does not even let you recover as the attacker just vanishes & does not help free locked resources. At this point, the big costs are on how to recover & rebuild.”
Companies already affected by the pandemic continue to be vulnerable targets when it comes to ransomware. A number of hospitals worldwide have been hit by ransomware attacks, for example, while ransomware threat players also targeted schools already pressurised from taking classes online.
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