Indonesia has been rocked by a cyberattack that has impacted more than 40 government agencies, including the immigration ministry and operations at major airports.
The latest attack – the worst the country has seen in years – has also disrupted immigration services and affected operations at government data centres, officials say.
Some 44 government agencies, including key ministries, were targets of a ransomware attack, an official from the communications ministry, said this week. The notorious Lockbit cybercrime gang has demanded an $8 million ransom.
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Data at five agencies, including immigration services and the coordinating ministry of investment, have been restored, and the government was working to restore data at 39 other agencies, he said.
“We expect the data at 18 government agencies to be restored by the end of this month,” Usman said.
Jakarta refusing to pay Lockbit $8m ransom
Indonesia’s communications ministry announced earlier this week that the attacker had used malicious software called Lockbit 3.0 and demanded the $8 million ransom, which the government refused to pay.
The Lockbit cybercrime group is notorious for using ransomware to digitally extort its victims.
Ransom software works by encrypting victims’ data. Hackers can offer a key in return for payments in millions of dollars, typically through cryptocurrency.
In a joint press conference with the ministry, Telkom Group director Harlan Wijanarko tried to assure Indonesians by saying that their data was secure.
“We have isolated the system in the national data centre so no one can enter it. We cut the access from the outside,” he said, adding that they were still investigating the cause of the attack.
The Telkom group operates two major data centres in Indonesia, one in the capital city of Jakarta and the other in Surabaya.
All government agencies in Indonesia rely on these centres to store data. The Surabaya data centre was the target of the attack.
- Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard
NOTE: The headline on this report was amended on June 28, 2024.
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