Costa Rica to receive $25M cybersecurity aid following ransomware attacks

The U.S. government has announced that it will send $25 million to Costa Rica in an effort to help the country strengthen its cybersecurity defenses after being impacted by a pair of Russian ransomware attacks last year, CyberScoop reports. Costa Rica had various government agencies compromised by the Conti ransomware gang in April, resulting in the exfiltration of over 672GB of data and the disruption of critical services, before being impacted by a Hive ransomware attack the following month. Such funding, which has been requested by Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chavez to President Joe Biden following both attacks, would help facilitate the country's efforts in bolstering network and critical infrastructure cybersecurity, according to a senior Biden administration official. "Clearly, in the current context, we recognize that supporting our allies' and partners' security is important in the context of the work we're doing supporting our European allies and partners from Russian cyberattacks, in the context of our broader competition with China and the key space Latin America plays in that as well," the official said.