Third-party ransomware attack disrupts major Colombian government agencies

Colombia had its Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, and Judiciary Branch disrupted by a ransomware attack against third-party technology provider IFX Networks Colombia last week, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Numerous services have been suspended across the impacted agencies following the attack, which impacted several IFX Networks machines. Officials from Colombia's Judicial Branch said that their whole cloud infrastructure was affected by the intrusion and that immediate restoration was not possible. Such an attack has also been dubbed as the "largest on infrastructure in Colombia in recent years" by presidential adviser Saul Kattan. While the threat actors behind the incident remain unknown, researchers at elHacker.net have linked the attack to the RansomHouse ransomware operation due to the similarities in ransom notes used in the IFX incident and the group's prior attack against Colombia-based health provider Keralty. Inquiries regarding the agency attacks were also observed by BetterCyber researchers on RansomHouse's Telegram channel.