Argentina's official immigration agency, Dirección Nacional de Migraciones, has been hit by a ransomware attack, specifically Netwalker, which temporarily halted border crossings. As you know, ransomware attacks against cities and local services are now commonplace.
According to a complaint published by Argentina's cybercrime agency, Unidad Fiscal Especializada en Ciberdelincuencia, the government learned of the ransomware attack after receiving multiple technical support calls from checkpoints at around 7 a.m. on August 27.
“The Technology and Communications Directorate under the General Directorate of Information Systems and Technologies of this Organization received many calls from various checkpoints requesting technical support.”
“This made us realize that this was not an ordinary situation, so we then assessed the state of the “Central Data Center and Distributed Servers” infrastructure, noting the activity of a virus that had affected the systems based on MS Windows files (ADAD SYSVOL and SYSTEM CENTER DPM) and Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, etc.) present in the employees’ shared and personal folders,” the immigration service said. To prevent the ransomware from infecting other devices, the networks used by immigration offices and checkpoints were shut down.
According to the news website Infobae, this led to a temporary suspension of border operations for four hours. “The Integrated Immigration System (SICaM) was affected, which naturally caused delays in entering and exiting the national territory,” the National Directorate of Immigration (DNM) said.
Government sources told Infobae that “they will not negotiate with the hackers and are not particularly interested in the return of this data.”
