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Government faces calls for transparency over data center recovery
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A stock illustration of ransomware attack. (Shutterstock/Zephyr_p)
A
s public anger over the failure to prevent the ransomware attack on a temporary national data center facility in late June starts to wane, experts and civil groups have urged the government to be transparent about its progress in recovering the impacted databases.
Nearly a month has passed since the ransomware attack on the facility in Surabaya, East Java, that disrupted hundreds of services connected to the server. The attack affected the databases of 282 central government and regional institutions, with only 43 of which having backed up their data.
The attackers used a new ransomware type Brain Cipher to infiltrate the system and encrypt the data, effectively making it inaccessible to anyone but the hackers, and they demanded a ransom of US$8 million to return control to the government.
But the hackers then released a decryption key on the dark web for the government to unlock the encrypted data.
The Communications and Information Ministry tested the key and found that it could unlock certain encrypted information, according to then informatics applications director general Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan last week.
However, no further updates have been provided by the government since then.
Of all 282 affected institutions, only five have restored their databases, according to the latest update in late June.
