The effects of the hacking suffered by the Seville City Council at the hands of the Dutch group Lockbit have now lasted for six days, a computer attack that affects the most common procedures of citizens such as requesting appointments or paying local taxes, also coinciding with the second installment for payment of the Real Estate Tax.
Last Tuesday, September 5, the hare of the cyberattack jumped and, since then, although all the technical machinery has been put in place, it has not been possible to solve this problem that directly affects the daily lives of citizens, who cannot do their paperwork. normally at the beginning of the course and without a date for the restoration of telematic services.
If there is one organization that exemplifies the professionalization of cybercrime in recent years, it is LockBit. This multinational computer attack company is keeping the Seville City Council systems hijacked, which had to turn off its 4,000 computers. Everything has returned to pen and paper.
The council has reported that it has received several ransom requests. An initial one of five million dollars and a second one of one million. In all their communications, both the municipal delegates and the mayor have asserted these days that Seville is not going to pay LockBit or accept “blackmail from criminals.”
Just as when the power goes out in a house you become much more aware of how many things run on electricity, with a computer attack, Sevillians are noticing the large number of administrative procedures that depend on the City Council’s network.
“I have not been able to make the prompt payment of a fine,” a Sevillian tells La Vanguardia, and now he does not know if they will be able to benefit from the 50% discount that comes with making the payment early, also worried about whether his bureaucracy will multiply later having You have to justify your attempts to complete the procedure within the established time. All procedures have been altered as the website continues to be down, from registration, payment of fees, prior appointments… A bureaucratic chaos in the era of digitalization, when a large number of procedures have to be carried out digitally.
And even if you try to do it in person, Sevillians cannot make an appointment, the automatic response from the consistory phone is that “at this time we cannot attend you due to an incident in our system, we are working to resolve it as soon as possible, sorry the inconvenience caused.”
Emergency devices, such as the Local Police and Firefighters, have also been forced to use paper notes to record and organize actions. The only services that already operate normally are public companies such as Tussam (buses), Emvisesa (housing) and Lipasam (cleaning).
The mayor of the capital of Seville, the popular José Luis Sanz, assured after learning of the attack that “they have not stolen data” from citizens but “they have encrypted it.” However, due to the modus operandi of this group of cybercriminals, the main concern was that it was a trap and that days later they could actually steal personal information, something that at the moment, there is no evidence of having happened.
However, cybersecurity experts disagree with this statement. Luis Corrons, security evangelist at Avast, a company that specializes in computer security, assures that the hackers have had access to this data because, otherwise, “it would not have been possible for said information to have been encrypted.” “This type of attack takes a lot of work, and in fact one of the latest trends is for cybercriminals to take a copy of the information before proceeding to encrypt it,” explains Corrons.
Lockbit is part of one of the most active cybercrime networks in Europe. It is characterized by launching selective attacks against companies and other organizations around the world through this ransomware (previously known as ABCD). This is a type of malicious software that blocks a company’s information, encrypts the information and demands a ransom in exchange for releasing it.
