Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves declared a national emergency in Costa Rica over the weekend after ransomware group Conti attacked several government offices and stole lots of data. In the meantime, a lot of government data has also been published.
The state of emergency declaration was signed by Chaves on Sunday, May 8, the day the economist and former finance minister was named the country's 49th and current president.
Costa Rica in national emergency after cyber attacks
On Sunday, May 8th, newly elected Costa Rican President Chaves declared a national emergency, citing ongoing ransomware attacks by the Conti Group as the reason. The ransomware Conti has already carried out ransomware attacks on government institutions in Costa Rica in the past month. According to the site BleepingComputer the Conti Group is said to have published most of the stolen 672 GB of data. Apparently the data contains important documents from the Costa Rican government agencies.
Conti website with stolen data
According to Conti itself, 97 percent of the stolen data has already been published. The first public entity to be harmed by Conti's cyberattack is the Treasury Department, which has not yet fully assessed the scope of the security incident, including how taxpayer data, payments, and customs systems will be affected.
US put up $10 million bounty on bounty
Due to the attack on the Costa Rican government and the many other hacks in the past, the US State Department has placed a $10 million bounty on top members of the Conti group. A bounty of up to $5 million is offered for other leads leading to the capture of other members or helping fight the group.
More at BleepingComputer.com