Cyber-attack compromised Indonesia data center, Govt Deny’s to pay $8 million

Indonesia’s National Data Center has been compromised by a hacking group asking for a $8 million ransom, but the government authority has informed that it won’t pay the amount.  

Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the director general of informatics applications with the Communications and Informatics Ministry, stated that since last Thursday, the cyberattacks have impacted more than 200 government services at regional and national levels.    

Also, some government services have returned-immigration services at airports and elsewhere are now functional- but efforts continue at restoring other services such as investment licensing, Pangerpan informed reporters.    

The attackers have held data hostage and provided a key for access in return for the $ 8 million ransom, said PT Telkom Indonesia’s director of network & IT solutions, Herlan Wijanarko.    

Also, Wijanarko informed us that the company, in collaboration with authorities at home and abroad, is analyzing investing and trying to break encryption, which makes the data inaccessible. Moreover, the communication and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setaidi also informed reporters.    

Also, “we have tried our best to carry out recovery while the National Cyber and Crypto Agency is currently carrying out forensics. “Added Setiadi. Also, the head of that agency, Hinsa Siburja, also said that they had detected samples of the lock bit 3.8 ransomware.    

The group that attacked Indonesia’s data center was also responsible for a quarter of all ransomware attacks around the world last year and has extorted over $ 1 billion from thousands of victims globally, as per the UK government.   

Moreover, as per Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency,  the top countries that were hit by cyberattacks were Britain, the US, Germany, France, and China; speaking about Indonesia cybersecurity, it has  a weak cybersecurity record, with poor online literacy and also the frequent leaks.  

Also, in 2021, during the coronavirus, researchers for encryption provider vpnmentor revealed the data of around 1.3 million users of a government test and trace app had been compromised.  

The news came just months after the data of more than 200 million participants of the National Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) was allegedly leaked by hackers.