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Communications minister faces tough questioning at House following cyberattack
Communications and Information Minister Budi Arie Setiadi faced hours of intense questioning from House of Representatives members on Thursday who were seeking clarity on a recent cyberattack on temporary national data center (PDN) facilities and the recovery steps needed to fix the nationwide disruption it caused.
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Communications and Information Minister Budi Arie Setiadi gestures during an interview at his office in Jakarta on June 14, 2024. (Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)
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ommunications and Information Minister Budi Arie Setiadi faced hours of intense questioning from House of Representatives members on Thursday who were seeking clarity on a recent cyberattack on a temporary national data center (PDN) facility and the recovery steps needed to fix the nationwide disruption it caused.
Minister Budi, accompanied by representatives of the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) and state-owned telecommunications firm Telkom, whose subsidiary is in charge of the facility's operations, opened his remarks by attempting to frame the cyberattack as a global issue.
“There is no country in the world that has not been hit by a ransomware attack,” he said, claiming that Indonesia’s case was minuscule compared to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, which had seen rampant cyberattacks.
A week has passed since the ransomware attack hit the temporary PDN in Surabaya, East Java, disrupting the databases of at least 282 central and regional government institutions. As of Thursday evening, only five of the affected agencies had restored their database access and resumed normal activities.
The communications ministry announced earlier that the attackers had used Brain Cipher, an altered version of the Lockbit 3.0 ransomware, the variant reportedly used by hacker group LockBit in a similar attack last year on state-owned Islamic lender Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI).
Read also: What data protection?
This time, the attackers demanded US$8 million in ransom, which the government refused. Minister Budi instead pledged to restore the system quickly. He targeted a full recovery by the second week of August and said a further audit was set to be concluded at the end of September.
