Mexico’s Economy Ministry Falls Under Attack

Mexico’s Economy Ministry has detected a cyber attack on its servers but says it does did not think that sensitive information to have been compromised. Providers have been asked to temporarily isolate networks and servers, the ministry said, adding that the processing of some forms would be temporarily suspended to protect their legal status.

This is reportedly the second high-profile cyberattack on the Mexican government after hackers demanded $5 million in bitcoin from national oil company Pemex last November. 

Officials at the ministry have repeated  that no sensitive information pertaining to national security was stolen. The department has not yet revealed all the details about the attack and therefore it is not known if there existed a ransom note or not.

In 2018 hackers made off with millions of pesos from Mexican banks using the country’s domestic electronic transfer system.

In this latest attack, Internet Service Providers in the country were asked to temporarily isolate networks and servers by the Mexican ministry. The ministry also reportedly said that the processing of some forms would be temporarily suspended to protect their legal status.

“Following an extensive revision, some of the ministry’s servers have been identified as affected, mostly email and archive servers... The ministry’s sensitive information as well as that of its users is not considered compromised,”a Minsistry spokesman said

Cyber security expert Jake Moore of ESET advises  that  organisation need to be up front about cyberattacks and not be scared of the public relation implications of such attacks.

“Most organisations are frightened of a PR disaster, so they tend to keep cyber-attacks under wraps where they can... My view is that we need to be more open about these attacks, as they clearly aren’t going away, and we need to work more closely together to reduce the threat,” said Moore.

Silicon:       Reuters:            Yucatan Times:        Tron Weekly:

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