Indonesia’s National Data Center Compromised by Cyberattack Demanding $8M Ransom
Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia’s national data center has fallen victim to a cyberattack by a hacking group seeking an $8 million ransom, which the government has confirmed it will not pay.
The attack has caused disruption to over 200 government agencies at both the national and regional levels since Thursday, according to Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the director general of informatics applications at the Communications and Informatics Ministry.
While some government services have been restored, such as immigration services at airports, efforts are ongoing to recover other services like investment licensing, Pangerapan informed reporters on Monday.
The attackers have encrypted data and offered a decryption key in exchange for the ransom, as stated by PT Telkom Indonesia’s director of network & IT solutions, Herlan Wijanarko.
Wijanarko mentioned that the company is working with authorities domestically and internationally to investigate the attack and decrypt the data.
Communication and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi stated that the government will not comply with the ransom demand. The National Cyber and Crypto Agency is conducting forensics while recovery efforts are underway.
The head of the agency, Hinsa Siburian, identified the ransomware as Lockbit 3.0.
Pratama Persadha, chairman of Indonesia’s Cybersecurity Research Institute, described the cyberattack as the most severe among a series of ransomware incidents affecting Indonesian government agencies and companies since 2017. He emphasized the importance of implementing a good backup system to prevent such attacks.
In a separate incident last year, the Islamic bank Bank Syariah Indonesia had 1.5 terabytes of data stolen by the LockBit ransomware group, according to Dark Tracer, an intelligence platform monitoring cyber threats.
The attack on the national data center highlights the vulnerability of Indonesia’s cyber infrastructure and the need for better cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive data from malicious threats.
