RansomwareJohannesburg Power Company Crippled by Ransomware Attack
City Power, the company supplying Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub, with electricity, has been attacked by a ransomware virus. The virus has “encrypted all our databases” representatives of the company said. Some of the company’s services have been crippled; the company said it may not be able to respond to a blackout; and more and more residents complain of loss of power. Johannesburg is not the first municipality to have its network infected by ransomware.
City Power, the company supplying Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub, with electricity, has been attacked by a ransomware virus. The virus has “encrypted all our databases” representatives of the company said.
A ransomware attack blocks company’s computer system – typically, by encrypting the data bases which the systems use in their operations — until a ransom is paid to the attacker. The attacker may then remove the encryption, or tell the victim how to circumvent it.
The virus “has encrypted all our databases, applications and network,” the company said. The company did not provide additional details, such as the origin of the attack or the attackers’ demands.
“Currently our ICT department is cleaning and rebuilding all impacted applications,” they added.
City Power is owned by the City of Johannesburg. The company said its customers may have difficulties accessing the company’s website or buying prepaid electricity units.
The problems may also hobble the company’s ability to respond to outages.
Reuters reports that Johannesburg residents told local media that they had been left without power due to the ransomware attack.
“Customers and stakeholders will be updated as and when new information becomes available,” the company said.
Business Insider South Africa is reporting that today, 25 July, is also a standard payday for many South Africans, and usually a day when many use their salaries to pay for new electricity packages for the upcoming month.
ZDNet notes that the city of Johannesburg is not the first municipality to have its network infected by ransomware, although it may well be one of the luckiest.
Some cities have made huge ransom payments to get access back to city files they had not secured by backups — such as Riviera Beach City, Florida ($600,000); Lake City, Florida ($500,000); and Jackson County, Georgia ($400,000).
Cities in Atlanta and Baltimore have experienced large-scale ransomware infections which have crippled many city services, and the cities ended up paying tens of millions of dollars when rebuilding their IT networks.
ZDNetsays that Johannesburg is lucky that the cyberattackers did not breach the city’s main IT network. “All in all, city networks, or city-connected services like City Power,have been increasingly targeted by ransomware gangs in recent months,” ZDNet says.
