For almost fourteen days now, the computer systems of the City Council of Melilla have been inactive after being hit by a cyber attack. The offensive has left the city without digital access to essential services, causing significant administrative and operational chaos.
Days later, the City Council of Villajoyosa (Alicante) has also been paralyzed by a ransomware attack. The incident, detected in the early hours, has forced the shutdown of equipment to contain it. More than 300 municipal devices have been compromised and recovery is expected to take 'several days'.
Both councils are working with the Cybersecurity Operations Center (COCS) of the National Cryptographic Center to restore services and assess the extent of the damage. Meanwhile, workers have returned to manual mode, managing public services without access to digital systems.
Melilla rejected the ransom demand, amounting to 1,8 millions of euros for nearly 4 TB of data, and relies on the CNI for recovery without yielding to extortion. In a context where attacks on municipal infrastructures are multiplying, experts warn that yielding to ransoms only encourages more incidents, and urge an urgent reinforcement of digital defenses in the public sector.
Fountain: Engadget