Jakarta:

A cyberattack on Indonesia’s national data centre compromised hundreds of government offices and caused long delays at the capital’s main airport, with the hacker demanding an $8 million ransom, officials said Monday.

Long queues formed at immigration gates at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport last week after systems went down in the attack, carried out using software developed by Russian ransomware outfit LockBit, an official from the communications ministry said.

The attack “affected 210 institutions at the national and local levels,” senior official Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan told reporters on Monday, adding a dark web hacker had demanded a $8 million ransom.

He added that immigration services were returning to normal on Monday morning and work was being done to restore other affected services.

Authorities are still investigating the ransomware, known as Brain Cipher, which made government data inaccessible due to encryption, he said.

LockBit and its affiliates have targeted governments, major companies, schools and hospitals, causing billions of dollars of damage and extracting tens of millions in ransoms from victims.

Typically, their programmes — once inserted by the ransomware operator into a target’s IT systems — are manipulated to freeze, via encryption, the target’s files and data.

The United States, Britain and Australia last month unveiled sanctions against the leader of LockBit, which they accuse of extorting billions of dollars from thousands of victims.

The group was responsible for a quarter of all ransomware attacks worldwide last year, and has extorted “over $1 billion from thousands of victims globally,” according to the UK government.

The top five countries hit by LockBit were the United States, Britain, France, Germany and China, according to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency.

Indonesia has a weak cyber security record, with poor online literacy and frequent leaks.

In 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers for encryption provider vpnMentor revealed the data of 1.3 million users of a government test-and-trace app had been compromised.

The reveal came just months after the data of more than 200 million participants of the National Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) was allegedly leaked by hackers.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Rescuers put the body of a victim of a flash flood on a gurney at a local community health center in Padang Pariaman, West Sumatra, Indonesia, on May 12, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Heavy rain brought floods and landslides to Indonesia’s province of West Sumatra, killing at least 28, with four still missing, authorities said on May 12.

“There are 28 people killed, and we are still searching for four others who are missing,” Abdul Malik, the chief of the provincial rescue team, told Reuters.

The national disaster management agency BNPB said in a statement that flooding since Saturday night had brought mud to the Tanah Datar regency, affecting five sub-districts.

BNPB said its latest assessment showed 84 housing units and 16 bridges were affected by the disaster, adding that heavy equipment had been deployed to speed up the clearing of road access.

Mount Ruang volcano erupts in Sitaro, North Sulawesi, on April 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A remote volcano in Indonesia’s outermost region erupted again on April 19, local authorities and an AFP journalist said, after the crater threw up columns of smoke and lava multiple times this week and forced thousands to evacuate.

“The volcano erupts again,” said the AFP journalist on the island of Tagulandang which neighbours Mount Ruang.

The country’s volcanology agency later confirmed the eruption sent a plume of smoke 400 metres (1,312 feet) above the peak.

“There was an eruption of Mt Ruang, North Sulawesi” at 1706 local time, 0906 GMT, it said.

“The ash column was observed to be grey in colour… and leaning towards the south.”

While officials said Ruang had started to calm Friday, authorities maintained the highest alert level on a four-tiered system, which indicates high volcanic activity.

They also told residents to remain more than six kilometres (four miles) from the crater.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.

A landslide and floods swept away dozens of houses and destroyed a hotel near Lake Toba on Sumatra in December, killing at least two people. Image for representation purposes only. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The death toll from flash flooding and landslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has risen to 21, an official said March 10, with six people still missing.

Torrential rains on Thursday triggered the disaster in Pesisir Selatan regency in the West Sumatra province, with more than 75,000 people forced to evacuate.

“As of Sunday, 21 people were found dead and six people remained missing,” Fajar Sukma, an official from West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency, told AFP by phone on Sunday.

A village located on a hillside in the Sutera subdistrict was struck hard, with around 200 families in the area left isolated after a landslide followed by flash flooding, Mr. Fajar said.

A local official earlier put the death toll at 18 with five missing.

Rescuers were searching for the missing on Sunday as authorities focused their operation on three areas affected by the disasters, local search and rescue official Abdul Malik said.

“Today’s search involves around 150 people from disaster organisations in West Sumatra,” Mr. Abdul said in a statement.

Doni Gusrizal, a senior official from the Pesisir Selatan disaster mitigation agency, said waters had started to recede after the flooding, but added that access to areas affected by the landslide remained difficult because of hilly terrain.

In the Padang Pariaman regency, also in West Sumatra, heavy downpours earlier this week caused rivers to overflow and triggered floods and a landslide, killing at least three people, according to a statement from the local disaster agency.

Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season and the problem has been aggravated in some places by deforestation, with prolonged torrential rain causing flooding in some areas of the archipelago nation.

A landslide and floods swept away dozens of houses and destroyed a hotel near Lake Toba on Sumatra in December, killing at least two people.

A shallow 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit near the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey said, with no damage or casualties immediately reported.

The tremor hit at 9:43 p.m. local time (1443 GMT) at a depth of 9.9 kilometres, according to the USGS.

Indonesia’s geophysics agency (BMKG) reported no immediate tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks. It initially reported a magnitude of 6.3.

“I was having a good sleep (when the earthquake jolted). I jumped out of bed immediately,” said Qamariah, a 41-year-old housewife in Central Sulawesi’s Malei village.

“It felt like being shaken as if rice was being sifted. It went up and then down. It was really strong because I lived close to the epicentre. It lasted for about 5 seconds,” she told AFP.

She said the power was out in her area so she could not see if there was damage.

“I am outside (my house) right now, with family and my neighbours,” she added.

Video obtained by AFP showed panicking people in Central Sulawesi’s Lambonga village gathered in groups outside of their homes as they sought safety in fear of aftershocks.

“As of now, there have been no reports of damage and casualties caused by the earthquake,” the Palu Search and Rescue Agency said in a statement.

“The residents of Balesang coastal village in Pabean, Donggala regency, have evacuated to higher ground, with the majority leaving their homes,” it added, referring to an area in Central Sulawesi.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

A 6.2-magnitude quake that shook Sulawesi island in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless.

In 2018, a 7.5-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 2,200 people.

And in 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.

In November last year, a 5.6-magnitude quake hit the Southeast Asian nation’s Java island, killing 602 people.

Most of the victims of that earthquake were killed when buildings collapsed or in landslides triggered by the tremor.

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the country’s Sumatra island in April, shaking homes of panicked residents but causing no casualties or damage.