Cyberattack at Mexico’s Economy Ministry

On Sunday, Mexico’s Economy Ministry detected a cyberattack on some of its servers but did not consider sensitive information to have been compromised, and beefed up safety measures, it said in a statement.

It was the second high-profile cyberattack on the Mexican government after hackers demanded USD $5 million in bitcoin from national oil company Pemex last November, forcing it to shut down computers nationwide.

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Providers have been asked to temporarily isolate networks and servers , the ministry said on Monday, adding that the processing of some forms would be temporarily suspended to protect their legal status .

“Following an extensive revision , some of the Ministry’s servers have been identified as affected, mostly email and archive servers,” it added.

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“The Ministry’s sensitive information , as well as that of its users, is not considered compromised.”

It was not immediately clear if the cyberattack was accompanied by a ransom demand as was the case for Pemex. Companies taken hostage digitally can suffer catastrophic damage, regardless of whether they pay ransom.

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