Federal government agencies in Latin America were targeted in several ransomware attacks in the past months, the latest targets of the attack being Chile and the Dominican Republic.
Following the escalation of cyber attacks, the Recorded future studied the attacks on Latin governments from January 2022 until May 2022. In this study, they examined vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and indicators of compromise (IOCs).
It was uncovered that the most advanced ransomware groups are targeting Latin federal agencies; the team of researchers highlighted the poor security measures against cybersecurity threats in the region.
Chile’s Ministry of Interior reported last week that the department has been hit by ransomware that targeted Windows and VMware ESXi servers. As a result of the attack, online services and their functions were disrupted. The ransomware encrypted files on compromised systems and renamed them with the extension .crypt.
Chilean government released public press on the attack and made public some indicators of compromise (IoC) hence the team of cyber analysis believes that the recent attack involved the relatively new RedAlert ransomware, which is also known as N13V.
RedAlert ransomware uses double extortion, encrypting the victim’s files and threatening to publicize the stolen data from its systems unless a ransom is paid. RedAlert’s Tor-based leak website did not report or write anything on the Chilean government agency at the time of writing.
Several government agencies in the Dominican Republic were also attacked by ransomware recently. The country’s national cybersecurity center notified on August 24 that the Ministry of Agriculture’s Dominican Agrarian Institute (IAD) was attacked. However, the team highlighted that the government does not plan to pay a ransom.
“We identified several government entities in Latin America (LATAM) that have been affected by ransomware attacks, likely involving Russian or Russian-speaking threat actors, beginning on or around April 2022. Countries affected include Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina, among others, all of which have publicly condemned Russia for invading Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Some of these countries also voted to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in early April 2022”, the Recorded Future said.
