Panama’s Ministry of Economy and Finance disclosed a security breach impacting a computer in its infrastructure.
Panama’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) announced that threat actors likely compromised one of its computers.
The Ministry immediately activated its security protocols to contain the threat. Panama’s Ministry pointed out that critical systems vital to operations remain safe.
In its statement, MEF explained that it detected possible malicious software on a workstation and acted quickly to isolate the threat and protect the rest of the network.
“The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) informs the public that today it detected an incident involving malicious software at one of the offices of the Ministry,” reads a statement issued by MEF last week. “The established security protocols were activated immediately and reinforced the preventive measures throughout the computer system to contain the intrusion. It is important to note that none of the central MEF platforms have been compromised and continue to operate with total normality.”
Panama’s Ministry of Economy and Finance reaffirmed its commitment to safeguarding institutional and personal information and stressed that it follows industry best practices to prevent future incidents.
MEF did not disclose technical details about the attack, however the INC ransom group claimed responsibility for the security breach. The gang claimed responsibility for the theft of over 1.5 terabytes of sensitive and confidential data, including financial documents and internal emails.
“We hacked the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Panama. We have more than 1.5TB data at our disposal, including: internal mail, confidential data, budgets and much more. We publish a small part of the information, but we will post a lot of interesting things in the public domain if the employees of the ministry do not make contact with us.” reads the statement published by the ransomware group.
The INC RANSOM has been active since 2023, it claimed responsibility for the breach of many organizations, including Xerox Business Solution and McLaren Health Care.
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