By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Due to the massive cyberattacks targeted against Costa Rican public institutions since last week, authorities issued a guideline to increase cyber security.

The Ministry of Technology order establishes that all public institutions must comply with a series of measures to deal with cyberattacks and prevent future hacks issues.

Among the actions to be taken is informing the Government's Computer Security Incident Response Center about any case of cyber attack that affects the confidentiality, availability and integrity of services available to the public, the continuity of institutional functions and identity theft of the institution in social networks.

Also, information related to possible cyber attacks must be recorded as evidence that helps in the investigations that experts would later carry out.

Additionally, public institutions must keep all security systems updated and maintain security guidelines such as changing passwords for all systems, disabling unnecessary services and ports, and monitoring network infrastructure.

It is mandated that all public institution websites must be duly registered on the government's main web page sitiosoficiales.gob.go.cr. This helps enable the verification of these sites to citizens, to allow them to avoid fake copied web pages, known as phishing.

Finally, the ministry requests to all public institutions bolster cybersecurity, technology, and equipment. As well as improve training to workers on cyber security guidelines.

As of Sunday, eight public institutions have suffered cyber attacks:

• Ministry of Finance, hacienda.go.cr.
• Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications, micitt.go.cr.
• Costa Rican Radiographic, racsa.go.cr , an institution in charge of the managing of telecommunications frequencies.
• National Meteorological Institute, imn.ac.cr.
• Social Security, ccss.sa.cr.
• Ministry of Labor, mtss.go.cr.
  
• Social Aid Development Fund, fodesaf.go.cr.
  
• And this weekend, the Administrative Board of the Electrical Service of Cartago Province, Jasec,  jasec.go.cr.

Jasec, the organization in charge of providing electricity in Cartago Province, was targeted by hackers over the weekend. Authorities said that it is possible that among the files hacked from that organization were data about the clients.

A week ago the first cyber attacks were detected which were made by Conti, a group of hackers, according to authorities. 

Many cybersecurity experts believe that Conti runs out of Russia. In February, members of Conti came out in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to ZDNet, a site specializing in news coverage and analysis on technologies.

Conti is related to ransomware that has been under surveillance since 2020, according to NHS Digital, which is the national provider of information, data and IT systems in the UK.

The ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid.

On Monday, the unofficial content displayed on those government sites asked for millions of dollars in exchange for returning the stolen information. 

According to the Ministry of Technology, the cybercriminal group made a public offer in exchange for not revealing the hacked information. It is a 35% discount on the 10 million ransom.

Last week, President Carlos Alvarado reaffirmed that "the government will not pay anything to these cybercriminals."

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What should the government do to prevent more cyberattacks on its institutions? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com