Heaptalk, Jakarta — The National Data Center (PDN), managed by the Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kominfo), is experiencing disruptions. A suspected ransomware virus attack has disrupted all public services.
Director General of Public Information and Communication at the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Usman Kansong, confirmed that the department is still investigating the ransomware attack on the National Data Center. “It is still being traced by BSSN (National Cyber and Encryption Agency),” Usman stated in a press release on Sunday (06/23).
If the investigation reveals any criminal activity, they will urge BSSN to coordinate with the National Police Headquarters (Mabes Polri) for legal proceedings. He added, “Kominfo is coordinating with BSSN and the police to trace the cause of the temporary National Data Center outage.”
Alfons Tanujaya, a cybersecurity expert from Vaksin.com, has raised a red flag, suspecting that the disruption at the government servers under the Kominfo resulted from a ransomware attack. He warns that if the attackers manage to download data from the ransomware, the public, as data owners, could potentially fall victim to data exploitation, highlighting the immediate need for action.
“The virtual machine in Kominfo’s PDN was attacked by ransomware and encrypted. Hundreds, maybe thousands. Immigration data is very sensitive and contains many important immigration information,” Alfons added. Therefore, he urged Kominfo and BSSN to swiftly restore the National Data Center server, making services return to normal. He also advised Kominfo to equip the government server with more advanced cybersecurity measures to prevent future virus attacks.
