The Spanish government’s labor ministry – Ministry of Labor and Social Economy (MITES) – was hit by a cyberattack on Wednesday.
MITES is a ministry that coordinates and supervises Spain’s employment, corporate social responsibility policies, and social economy.
“The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy has been affected by a computer attack,” MITES’ media office said earlier today.
It is not known whether it was a ransomware attack, not what group was behind the incident.
The IT team at the Ministry of Health and the National Cryptological Centre is working to restore the system’s normal operation:
“The technical managers of the Ministry and the National Cryptological Center are working together to determine the origin and restore normality as soon as possible,” the ministry said.
While the website is still up following the attack, the ministry’s communications and multimedia rooms have been knocked down.
The Spanish government agency Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal (SEPE), that is part of MITES and was hit by the ransomware attack in March, said that it was not affected by the incident.
“The computer attack that the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy has suffered has NOT affected the operation of the State Public Employment Service,” SEPE said. “The Electronic Office, the website and the set of services continue to be provided normally.”
SEPE‘s systems were hit by a ransomware attack by Russian Ryuk ransomware gang on March 9. The attack impacted over 700 agency offices across Spain. Besides the agency’s workstations, the ransomware also affected SEPE‘s remote working staff.
Due to the ransomware attack that hit Spain’s public sector agency SEPE, thousands of appointments were delayed throughout Spain.
The Spanish labor agency is only one of the victims of ransomware attacks in Spain. Other high-profile victims include Everis and Cadena SER, hit in November 2019. And in 2017, Telefonica, one of the largest telecoms globally, was hit by the WannaCry ransomware attack.
