Ransomware Attack Prompts Transfer of Indonesia’s Immigration Data to Amazon Web Service
Jakarta. Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly has confirmed that immigration data services, now hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS) following a cyberattack, are secure.
"Currently, the data remains on AWS. Everything is complete and in good condition, with no more issues," Yasonna Laoly stated after an internal meeting regarding the cyberattack on the Temporary National Data Center (PDNS) at the Presidential Palace Complex in Jakarta on Friday.
Yasonna assured that the immigration data stored on AWS is safe from leaks. However, he could not specify when the data would be returned to the PDNS.
"We'll see how the situation develops," he added.
The Law and Human Rights Ministry's immigration services were transferred to AWS following disruptions at the PDNS caused by a ransomware attack on June 20.
The National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) and the Ministry of Communication and Informatics identified that 282 institutions were affected by the ransomware attack.
President Joko Widodo has instructed the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister, Abdullah Azwar Anas, to conduct a study and seek references on national data management from several countries in preparation for establishing the official PDN.
"In various countries, the governance and management of national data centers, such as in Canada, India, and several others, have special units dedicated to managing these centers," he explained.
Azwar Anas said that the government will form a technical implementation unit following the launch of the official National Data Center (PDN) at the end of 2024.
Following the ransomware attack that compromised the national data center and disrupted immigration services, Communication and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi noted that Indonesia is not the only country affected by such attacks.
During a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission I, which oversees defense and foreign affairs, Budi highlighted that Indonesia ranks among the lowest of the G20 countries in terms of the number of ransomware attacks.
"No country in the world is immune to ransomware. The United States experiences the most attacks, accounting for 40.43 percent of the total, followed by Canada with 6.75 percent, the United Kingdom with 6.44 percent, Germany with 4.29 percent, and France with 3.8 percent. Indonesia’s share is only 0.67 percent," Budi said, quoting data from Technology Review Insight.
Budi said that the data center is expected to fully recover from the attack's impacts by the end of July. However, the data stored within it is lost and unusable. He mentioned earlier that the group behind the attack had demanded an $8 million ransom. The ransomware used is called Brain Cipher.
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