Several Spanish State Agencies Hit By Cyberattacks, Temporarily Close Websites - Reports

Several Spanish government agencies were targeted by cyberattacks and forced to close down their websites temporarily, La Vanguardia newspaper reported on Friday, citing sources

MADRID (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2021) Several Spanish government agencies were targeted by cyberattacks and forced to close down their websites temporarily, La Vanguardia newspaper reported on Friday, citing sources.

Web portals of the Spanish judicial, educational and economic ministries were unavailable for several minutes, while it took specialists over 12 hours to restore the services of the National Statistics Institute (INE).

"Yesterday, a malicious code was detected in some of the ministry's services and the necessary measures were taken to contain the incident," sources in Spain's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation were cited as saying by the newspaper.

The ministry also noted that no data were lost, and the portal was restored after a few hours, La Vanguardia said.

The INE reportedly decided to "restrict all external communications" as a precaution after receiving warning of a cyberattack.

The institute resumed work on Friday morning after checking all its systems.

The source of the cyberattacks has not yet been identified, but, presumably, it is different from that of the ransomware viruses that the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) encountered in March, the newspaper stated.

Hackers attacked the SEPE on March 9, disabling its website for over a week. Spanish media claimed that the Russian secret services were behind the cyberattack, which was later refuted by government sources. However, National Cryptology Centre analysts concluded that the attack was indeed carried out by Russian hackers, though they were not affiliated with the special services.

Western countries have on multiple occasions accused Russia of carrying out cyberattacks and interfering in internal affairs. Moscow has firmly denied all such accusations, and repeatedly expressed readiness to establish dialogue on cybersecurity.