Lisbon, Oct. 17, 2024 (Lusa) - Portugal's Agency for Administrative Modernisation (AMA) has contracted the technology company Claranet, by direct award, for around €193,000 to implement urgent security measures, aiming to " prevent another attack", according to information from Portal Base.
According to the details of the contract, reported in the newspaper Público, the procedure chosen was a direct award, in this case for the provision of IT consultancy services, to the company Claranet II Solutions, for €192,992.45.
On 10 October, AMA's infrastructures were the target of a cyber-attack, with the organisation reporting that its network had been disrupted by a computer attack (ransomware) and, as a result, access to various digital platforms and services was preventively unavailable.
The purpose of the contract published on the Base Portal with Claranet is to "provide IT consultancy services to implement urgent and necessary security practices, from secure backups to advanced measures, to be implemented immediately, to prevent a new attack because of the current vulnerability of the systems and to say the security of the data involved through the support of specialists in Cloud & Infra, Data & AI, Applications and Workplace solutions, within the scope of the Cybersecurity Incident Response Service, on an hourly basis".
The same portal also justifies not putting the contract in writing, citing "reasons of imperative urgency resulting from events unforeseeable by the organisation", which makes it "necessary to give immediate execution to the contract" as provided for in the Public Contracts Code.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Youth and Modernisation reported that "most of the entities affected" by the cyberattack "have had their services restored".
Thus, according to the latest update on the situation, "the main services are operational, such as the Tax Authority, Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, Social Security, the Mint and the Institute for Financial Management and Equipment of Justice (IGFEG)".
Lusa contacted the Ministry of Youth and Modernisation and Claranet and is awaiting a response.
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