SEPE begins to recover its services after suffering a cyberattack

The Spanish State Public Employment Service (SEPE), an autonomous body attached to the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy that forms the Spanish National Employment System, has confirmed a security incident that has interrupted the availability of its information and communications systems.

The response to the incident, which occurred on 9th of March, was immediate in order to isolate the incident and minimise its impact and scope. It has been confirmed that there has been no data theft and that the confidentiality of benefit payments has not been affected, and that operating and management systems and servers of SEPE have not been damaged by the cyberattack.

Since 12th of March, the web portal has been available and the rest of the services dedicated to citizens, companies, benefits offices and employment will be gradually restored throughout the month.

Currently, as the SEPE is a public administration body, the technical teams of the National Cryptologic Centre (CCN), the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) and the General Secretariat for Digital Administration continue to work to determine the origin and effects of the incident.

The SEPE has also informed that it is working to be able to fully restore the service under maximum security conditions as soon as possible, and the application deadlines will not be counted until the management system is fully restored.