Authors of a cyber attack on the Calvià City Council (Mallorca) demand 10 million euros for the return of all the information obtained, some of it of a sensitive nature and which compromises personal data of the citizens of the town, as suspected by the council. The mayor from Calvià, José Antonio Amengual, has confirmed the demand for 10 million euros and has announced that the ‘ransom’ will not be paid.
The City Council was subject to an intrusion into its computer system on January 13. Officials cannot access the Internet from their computers for now and everyone will have to change the password with which they enter the service. Workers have received an email in which they are warned not to open any communication that is not from a completely secure address.
The city council has asked citizens not to use the municipal registry and asks them that, if they have to carry out any type of management, they do so through the general registry of the State Administration. All positions that accompany the administrative procedures have been suspended until January 31.
The council has launched a crisis cabinet to coordinate all the actions that are developed from now on. The Corporation’s IT Service is working to try to recover all the files kidnapped by the attackers, while the Telematics Services Unit of the Civil Guard has also opened an investigation following the complaint filed by the council.
The city council is currently evaluating the final scope of the intrusion, although everything indicates that sensitive information relating to the inhabitants of the municipality may have been affected. A team from the Civil Guard in collaboration with municipal technicians are carrying out forensic tests to try to find the hackers who carried out the attack in the early hours of Saturday.
It is not the first institution in the Balearic Islands to be the target of an attack of this nature. The Health Service of the Islands was also subject to an intrusion into its system and the Balearic Government had to reinforce computer security systems throughout the department. The Executive assured at the time that no sensitive information about the medical records of the service users was compromised.