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The US Is Sending Money to Countries Affected by Cyberattacks
Lily Hay Newman, on WIRED:
Almost a year after the crisis began, a senior White House official told reporters today that the United States plans to provide $25 million in cybersecurity assistance to help Costa Rica strengthen its digital infrastructure.
Changed the original Wired title wording from Devastated to Affected. We were here in Costa Rica during all this, and while it was a very big deal, the country did not close down.
Not minimizing it, but if it had affected the power grid, I could see how everything would come to a standstill, but the country managed to continue to operate.
The attacks on Costa Rica were led by the prolific, now disbanded, cybercriminal gang Conti and its affiliates. The group demanded a $20 million ransom and uploaded hundreds of gigabytes of data stolen in the attacks to its dark-web site.
It was bad, and it could have been a lot worse. The best part of this is that it earmarks the amount for cybersecurity. Even if the amount is not enough to cover all the needed changes, it gives strong incentives to start the project — which usually is the hardest part for many backend changes needed that don’t provide any features.