kk777 Indonesia won’t pay $8M ransom after cyberattack hits nat’l data center
Updated:2024-10-24 04:28 Views:194
FILE – Officers check the passports of passengers leaving for Singapore at the immigration checkpoint of the Bandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal on Bintan Island, Indonesia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Indonesian authorities said Monday that the country’s national data center was compromised by a cyber attack, disrupting public services including the immigration check points and asked for an $8 million ransom. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)
JAKARTAkk777, Indonesia — Indonesia’s national data center has been compromised by a hacking group asking for a $8 million ransom that the government says it won’t pay.
The cyberattack has disrupted services of more than 200 government agencies at both the national and regional levels since last Thursday, said Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the director general of informatics applications with the Communications and Informatics Ministry.
READ: Car dealers in US revert to pens, paper after cyberattacks on software provider
Article continues after this advertisementSome government services have returned — immigration services at airports and elsewhere are now functional — but efforts continue at restoring other services such as investment licensing, Pangerapan told reporters Monday.
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Wijanarko said the company, in collaboration with authorities at home and abroad, is investigating and trying to break the encryption that made data inaccessible.
Article continues after this advertisementCommunication and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi told journalists that the government won’t pay the ransom.
Article continues after this advertisement“We have tried our best to carry out recovery while the (National Cyber and Crypto Agency) is currently carrying out forensics,” Setiadi added.
Article continues after this advertisementThe head of that agency, Hinsa Siburian, said they had detected samples of the Lockbit 3.0 ransomware.
READ: Hackers gain access to sensitive DOST data
Article continues after this advertisementPratama Persadha, Indonesia’s Cybersecurity Research Institute chairman, said the current cyberattack was the most severe in a series of ransomware attacks that have hit Indonesian government agencies and companies since 2017.
“The disruption to the national data center and days-long needed to recover the system means this ransomware attack was extraordinary,” Persadha said. “It shows that our cyber infrastructure and its server systems were not being handled well.”
He said a ransomware attack would be meaningless if the government had a good backup that could automatically take over the main server of the national data center during a cyberattack.
Indonesia’s central bank was attacked by ransomware in 2022 but public services were not affected. The health ministry’s COVID-19 app was hacked in 2021, exposing the personal data and health status of 1.3 million people.
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Last year, an intelligence platform that monitors malicious activities in cyberspace, Dark Tracer, revealed that a hacker group known as the LockBit ransomware had claimed to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data managed by Indonesia’s largest Islamic bankkk777, Bank Syariah Indonesia.
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