The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, ICE) reported being the victim of sophisticated cyber espionage that resulted in the theft of 9 gigabytes of information from internal emails. The incident, described as a national security situation by the head of the Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications, Paula Bogantes, coincides with the bidding process for the new 5G cellular network.

Authorities, which are still gathering evidence, point to an Asian actor with a global track record of corporate espionage focused on the telecommunications sector as the likely origin of the attack. The same actor has been identified in 42 countries. The complaint has already been filed with the Judicial Investigation Agency.

At the same time, the Government of Costa Rica has requested support from advisers from the United States to secure ICE’s information and manage the incident.