New Victims of Cyber-Attack, Ministry Advises Caution
Jakarta. The Indonesia Security Incident Response Team on Internet Infrastructure, or IDSIRTII, has said new victims of the WannaCry global cyber-attack have been recorded, as was expected.
"Today there were new reports of people getting targeted by WannaCry ransomware; the numbers are not high, we cannot reveal them yet," Adi Jaelani of the IDSIRTII said on Monday (15/05).
Adi said the response team, which was established under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, has been receiving inquiries from government institutions and private companies to help them prevent the attacks.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Rudiantara said that the ministry coordinates with the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the Energy Ministry and the Transportation to make sure the cyber-attack does not affect the most important sectors.
"The three critical sectors are finance and banking, transportation and energy. I have talked to [Energy Minister Ignasius] Jonan and [ Minister of Transportation] Budi Karya to make sure they warn the sectors they supervise," Rudiantara said, adding that IDSIRTII has been on guard since Saturday.
WannaCry started spreading last Friday but, according to the minister, it reached Indonesia a day later.
The ministry advised employees to turn Wi-Fi routers off and disconnect LAN cables before starting their computers and move all important data to external storage or another computer equipped with the Linux or Mac OS system.
"A decrypt for the infected computers is not yet available," Rudiantara said.
The Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association, or Apjii, also warned computer users to be cautious of suspicious links, e-mails or invitations from unknown social media to prevent the malware from spreading.
Apjii chairman Jamalul Izza said on Monday the association has made an effort to warn its members and has prepared a step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with the ransomware.
"At the [internet] providers level, we have called on our members to immediately put stronger filters and to distribute our tutorial among their customers. Thank God, as of today the [malware's] impact [on Indonesia] is not that big," he said.
WannaCry, also known as WanaCrypt0r 2.0 and WCry, is a ransomware program targeting computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system that locks up files on infected computers and demands a $300 ransom — the amount will double in three days — in bitcoin, otherwise the data will be wiped out.
The ransomware has so far locked up more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
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