A group of cybercriminals hijacked the computer network of the City Hall of Seville, Spainand claims nothing less than $5 million to return the service.
Municipal sources reported that the initial amount requested for the ransom through an encrypted message had been US$1.5 million dollarsthen raised to $5 millionand it is unknown if the hackers had access to personal data of the population.
Authorities of the Seville City Hallcapital of the province of Andalusiadenied that there were negotiations with the criminals, whom they point to as “LockBit”one of the most important groups of cyber-pirates in the world, according to the Seville portal abc.
Municipal services were interrupted as a “precautionary measure until the specific scope of the cyberattack is known,” the City Council reported in its Twitter account. X (former Twitter).
Since Tuesday, the municipal website and the different services offered to citizens through the Internet have been down.
The matter is being investigated jointly by the National Cryptological Center (CCN-CERT) and by the National Police, reported the portal RTVE.
A return to over-the-counter procedures
The City Council technicians and specialized external personnel have been working for more than 24 hours to find a solution and determine the origin and scope of the cyberattack and to be able to establish normalcy as soon as possible. In this sense, all services were interrupted “as a precautionary measure”, which forced many procedures to be carried out over the counter as the only way, according to RTVE.
At the moment, the authorities have not verified that the municipal emergency services or the personal data of citizens have been affected.
The action of hackers prevents the performance of any digital management with the City hallsuch as payments or presentation of documents, and also affects the communications and location services of the Police and Fire Departments.
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Warned of the attack, the municipal delegation of Tax authorities urged all municipal staff to disconnect the terminals and subsequently to unplug all computer terminals from the electrical network.
This is the third cyberattack suffered by the Seville City Hall in the last three years. In one of them, he warned of a million-euro fraud carried out by hackers.
Just a year ago, there was another alleged scam against the City Council; in this case, for the “impersonation of the company awarded the contract for Christmas lights to charge for the service.” The payment of the contract was around one million euros.
The group LockBita criminal organization of Dutch origin, also attacked Argentine companies, such as Obra Social OSDE, the Ledesma mill, Farmalink and Grupo Albanesiwith the mode of ransomware.
He ransomwarein computing, is a type of malware or malicious code that prevents the use of the equipment or systems it infects, since the cybercriminal takes control of the infected equipment or system and “hijacks” it in various ways, encrypting the information, blocking the screen, etc., and to return it he asks for a ransom.
Source: Ambito
