There is no better defense than a good attack and that is precisely what the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Mossos have decided to combat the cybercriminals who stole 4.5GB of Data from the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona.
Last month the group called ransomhouse it infiltrated the hospital’s systems and paralyzed its activity for several days causing absolute chaos. Thousands of operations had to be postponed and doctors had to go back to pen and paper due to the impossibility of using the center’s computer systems. Days later the Department of Health managed to recover normalcy but it was already too late; cybercriminals had stolen confidential data such as patient names, medical records and a host of other information that was quickly put up for sale. $4.5 million in cryptocurrencies in exchange for not publishing the information. The Generalitat of Catalonia flatly refused and Sergi Marcen, Secretary of Digital Transformation was blunt; “We do not negotiate with criminals.”
Data in sight on the Dark Web
The so-called “dark Internet” where these types of groups operate was the showcase to show only an appetizer of the data they had stolen. A kind of “life test» to alert the Generalitat that in case of not paying, all the data would come to light, causing a significant security breach for exposed citizens. The response has not been long in coming, instead of giving in to blackmail as many private companies have done or sitting idly by waiting for the publication of all the data, the Generalitat has decided to take action. The Mossos have started a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against RamsonHouse servers making it impossible for the information to be available.
basically the Catalan police has started a cyber war against criminals by launching a massive data attack and making the leaked data unavailable at least for now. Simply explained, the police are sending millions of packets per second to the servers, preventing them from absorbing all the traffic and therefore displaying the filtered data.. Will there be an answer? Possibly yes, this type of criminal groups usually raises coordinated actions against Public Administrations and Governments. Sources close to the investigation confirm to this medium that the action launched by the Mossos will not end here. “We are working with law enforcement internationally and we are rounding up cybercriminals.” “We are also prepared for what may come, in fact the Generalitat receives more than 4 million attacks daily.”
The story has only just begun, we will soon know if the good guys or the bad guys win.