US to help Costa Rica recover from 2022 Conti ransomware attack's impact with $25m aid

The US government has committed to providing aid of $25 million to the Costa Rican government to help it recover from a severe ransomware attack the country suffered last year.

In May 2022, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves declared a state of emergency following multiple Conti ransomware attacks that affected several government bodies including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, and the Costa Rican Social Security Fund.

A White House official said this week that the U.S. government would use funds from the State Department to provide an aid of $25 million to the Costa Rican government as a response to president Chaves’ direct request. The aid would help the country’s efforts to recover from the significant ransomware attack it suffered last year.

In a statement shared with the media, a White House spokesperson said, “Last spring, Costa Rica experienced some of the worst ransomware attacks than any country had experienced, which really impacted the country’s critical services. It disrupted their finance, telecommunications and social security institutions and resulted in President Chavez declaring a state of emergency.

“At the time, we immediately deployed a team of U.S. experts to assist in Costa Rica’s recovery and have been working closely with the country since then, and have recognised that further assistance is needed,” the spokesperson added.

The announcement coincided with President Biden inaugurating the second Summit for Democracy which was co-hosted by President Chaves of Costa Rica, Prime Minister Rutte of the Netherlands, President Yoon of the Republic of Korea, and President Hichilema of Zambia.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Ambassador to Albania, Yuri Kim provided a similar grant of $25 million to the Albanian government to help the country recover from two consecutive cyber attacks it suffered last year. The Albanian government believed that the second cyber attack was conducted by Iran shortly after the White House condemned the Iranian government for carrying out the first attack on the country’s public and government service systems.

Commenting on the news, Ryan McConechy, Principle Consultant at Barrier Networks, said, “In the last few years the world has witnessed devastating attacks on governments and critical national infrastructure, which have highlighted just how severe the consequences of cyber can be today.

“If a nation-state wants to cause harm to another country, cyber is almost a fail-safe way to do this. There is no need to send soldiers on the ground, attacks can be carried out from afar with devastating consequences. This aid from the US is therefore much like aid being sent to a country during a war, the only difference this time is that the aid relates to cyberwarfare, not a physical conflict.

“International support between allied countries is something we will likely see more of as nation-state attacks become increasingly well-funded/co-ordinated. Furthermore, future cooperation agreements between nations on cyber war fronts, specifically on information sharing, may also need to increase.

“A large percentage of the enterprise IT space is currently unprepared for such fearsome adversaries. This could have very interesting impacts on funds diverted into cybersecurity and the relationships that form across this space. We could see much tighter cooperation between businesses, even ones in direct competition, to allow them to stand up to larger adversaries,” he added.