A cyber attack has hit the websites of the National Statistics Institute (INE) and different ministries such as those of Education and Culture, Justice or the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. In the case of the INE, the attack caused the website to be down for at least 12 hours, although it is currently operational again.
It is a series of attacks that has affected different public administrations in a synchronized manner and it has caused some effects on its web pages. Sources from the Ministry of Economy confirm the attack on Xataka, explaining that “different organizations were affected by an attack yesterday,” although “it is already fixed and it is working normally “.
The electronic headquarters and the SARA network in the spotlight
The objective and origin of this cyber attack is unknown. As described by El Confidencial, the attack “has to a certain extent exceeded the capacities of the affected entities” and is currently under the control of the National Cryptological Center (CCN), which is evaluating the scope.
As explained to Xataka from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation: “yesterday the presence of malicious code was detected on some servers of the Ministry and the necessary measures to contain the incident were addressed. The impact on the data has been non-existent and the service, after the pertinent verifications, has been restored within a few hours “.
The first impact on record was the INE website, which ceased to be operational yesterday around 6:00 p.m. As explained from MuyComputer, an image appeared in which a possible cyberattack was reported and that communications with the SARA network had been interrupted, implying the suspension of services such as the portafirmas, Cl @ ve, Geiser or the intermediation platform.
SARA is the acronym for ‘Application Systems and Networks for Administrations’. This is the central network developed in 2006 that connects a large part of the websites of public administrations. A critical system that the cyber attackers would have tried to affect and that if affected could cause significant problems in the main administrations.
During the attack, websites such as the Ministry of Education and Culture were not accessible. Changes have also been seen on the website of the Ministry of Justice, where at this time it is still necessary to register to be able to access. A login that it was not necessary before to be able to navigate and be informed.
The website of the Ministry of Justice requests a registration as soon as you enter. At the beginning of this month of April, several institutions of the European Union were affected by a security incident. In Spain, another cyber attack has caused significant delays in the SEPE.
Among the European recovery funds, an investment of up to 4,315 million euros is planned to modernize the administrations of health, justice, the SEPE, the Social Security or the consulates. Some of them with systems not up-to-date and susceptible enough to some cyberattacks that during this 2021 are being a constant.
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