Panama’s Ministry of Financial system and Finance (MEF) has disclosed that one in all its computer systems could have been compromised in a cyberattack..
The federal government famous that it activated the safety procedures for these conditions, stating that the incident has been contained and did not affect core programs which are important to its operations.
“The Ministry of Financial system and Finance informs the general public that at this time an incident involving doable malicious software program was detected on one of many Ministry’s workstations,” MEF says in an official assertion.
“The established safety protocols have been instantly activated, and preventive measures throughout your entire IT system have been strengthened to include the intrusion.”
“It is very important emphasize that none of MEF’s central programs or platforms have been compromised they usually proceed working usually.”
Panama’s MEF is a vital ministry within the nation, managing fiscal coverage, public spending, and debt administration. Most significantly, it handles the Panama Canal revenues, the nation’s largest supply of earnings.
The MEF says that private and institutional knowledge are secure, and all industry-standard measures are in place to stop future incidents.
Hoewever, the INC Ransom gang has claimed an assault on MEF final week in a publish on its knowledge leak web site. The hackers say that they stole greater than 1.5 TB of knowledge from MEF’s programs, together with emails, monetary paperwork, budgeting particulars, and extra.
The risk group added MEF to its record of victims on the darkish net on September 5, and leaked knowledge samples within the type of inner paperwork as proof of the breach.
INC Ransom claiming the Panama MEF assault
Supply: BleepingComputer
BleepingComputer contacted MEF to ask in regards to the validity of INC Ransom’s claims, however we’ve not obtained a response by publication time.
INC Ransom emerged in mid-2023 as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). They focused a number of high-profile victims akin to Yamaha Motor, Xerox Enterprise Answer, Scotland’s NHS, McLaren Well being Care, the Texas State Bar, and Ahold Delhaize.
In Could 2024, a risk actor utilizing the moniker “salfetka” posted on the Russian-speaking hacking boards that that they had the supply code for the ransomware and provided to promote it for $300,000.
46% of environments had passwords cracked, almost doubling from 25% final yr.
Get the Picus Blue Report 2025 now for a complete take a look at extra findings on prevention, detection, and knowledge exfiltration developments.
