On October 25, the official Twitter account of the municipality of the city of Johannesburg shared a screenshot, according to which the city of Johannesburg closed its website and its billing system after a group hacked the authority system .
In the tweet, the city said it had detected a network failure that resulted in unauthorized access to its information system, and cybersecurity experts investigated the incident. The city's website was closed as a precaution, which means that customers will not be able to make electronic service transactions or register inquiries through the call center or the city's customer service center.
According to a local eNCA broadcaster, the group of hackers, who call themselves Shadow Kill Hacker , demanded a ransom of four Bitcoins worth around $ 37,000 at the current price. The pirates computer then threatened to charge all hostages data on the Internet before October 28 if your rescue criptomonedas not met, the news agency said.
According to the station, the initial report indicates that nobody's personal data has been compromised by this cyberattack. According to a spokesman for the city of Johannesburg, this was a clear and well planned attack by hackers. He said:
“According to the team, this attack was detected at the user level, without having affected the applications themselves. We are doing everything possible to restore some of the critical functionalities so that people can make transactions with the city ».
According to the South African Bank Risk Information Center , these online attacks were also carried out in multiple banks that affected public services earlier this week. On October 24, the Standard Bank of South Africa , believed to have been attacked by cybercriminals, tweeted:
“You may find it difficult to log in to online banking and in our banking application at this time. We are working to solve this ».
Similarly, on October 23, ABSA tweeted:
"We are aware of the ongoing intermittent problems with our digital channels and our technicians are working on a solution."
Craig Rosewarne, managing director of the information and cyber threat management company Wolfpack Information Risk, said that as cyber attacks become more frequent and sophisticated, many companies and service providers will find themselves poorly equipped to detect and combat non-incidents. Desired in the future.
According to a Sowetan Live blog post published on July 25, 2019, the Johannesburg City Power database and other software were also attacked by a virus that restricted the company's services, such as the purchase of prepaid electricity.