Ransomware Gang Threatens To Overthrow Costa Rica Government

A ransomware gang that infiltrated some Costa Rican government computer systems has upped its threat, saying its goal is now to overthrow the government. From a report: Perhaps seizing on the fact that President Rodrigo Chaves had only been in office for a week, the Russian-speaking Conti gang tried to increase the pressure to pay a ransom by raising its demand to $20 million. Chaves suggested Monday in a news conference that the attack was coming from inside as well as outside Costa Rica. "We are at war and that's not an exaggeration," Chaves said. He said officials were battling a national terrorist group that had collaborators inside Costa Rica. Chaves also said the impact was broader than previously known, with 27 government institutions, including municipalities and state-run utilities, affected. He blamed his predecessor Carlos Alvarado for not investing in cybersecurity and for not more aggressively dealing with the attacks in the waning days of his government. In a message Monday, Conti warned that it was working with people inside the government.

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[Ostracus]

Third estimate is borrowing money. Either way the hackers isn't about fixing the current regime, but exploiting a bad situation for their own gain. At least we stormed our capital.

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[Fly Swatter]

The problem is the hacker terrorists are hiding half a planet away, at least when someone storms a capital we know who to hang.

Re:So El Salvador is boned either way.

[Burdell]

Are you aware that El Salvador and Costa Rica are completely separate countries?

Re:So El Salvador is boned either way.

[PPH]

I've seen those two countries mistaken for each other at least a Brazilian times.

Not a banana republic

[Catvid-22]

For context, Costa Rica exports bananas but isn't a banana republic. In fact it's considered to be one of the least corrupt, most democratic and happiest [imf.org] places in Latin America.

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[Anonymous Coward]

It's all relative though, you only have to look at examples like shark finning which is supposedly banned, but as soon as a group of activists used a drone to film widescale shark finning operations drying illegaly poached fins on the roofs of an industrial area in Costa Rica, guess who the police rapidly turned up to arrest?

I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the people engaging in the industrial (read: mafia scale) scale poaching operation to sell the illegally poached fins to China, it was the activists.

Cost

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[taustin]

So you're saying "the happiest place in Latin America" is like "the happiest level of Hell"?

If that really is a stated goal of the group . . .

[Jdodge99]

Doesn't the mean that anyone working with the group is committing treason? I'm not sure of the structure of Costa Rica's constitution and laws -- but MOST governments have significantly elevated powers and punishments available if treason or insurrection is the goal of a criminal enterprise.

This sort of thing is also a reminder why we need unplugged backups. IE. The data is on a drive that is unplugged and in a vault somewhere. (I need to run another set of those for my systems now -- It'

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[aaarrrgggh]

Unplugged backups are of limited use when the utility can't keep the lights on because their SCADA system is down due to an inside operative. When it gets bad enough the present is (almost) more important than history.

End of sanctions condition?

[Anonymous Coward]

When Russia ends its mess in Ukraine, part of the conditions to end sanctions needs to be new rules to extradite the criminal hacker gangs from Russia.

I wonder why a similar condition hasn't been a condition for Ukraine military aid considering they are the second largest source of cyber extortion.

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[gtall]

I agree although I think it might be difficult to extradite the FSB.