Indonesia IT Ministry official resigns amid cyberattack fallout

After recent Indonesia’s most severe cyberattack, Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the director-general for applications and information at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, resigned, citing moral responsibility. The attack, which struck more than 280 government agencies, resulted in significant data loss and disrupted essential services ranging from airport operations to scholarship management. The hacker group responsible initially demanded a ransom of $8 million, which the government refused to pay. The hackers later apologised and provided a decryption key to unlock the stolen data.

Despite the decryption key’s release, the recovery process has been challenging. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology reported that only 2% of the data had been saved by early efforts, with the rest presumed lost. President Joko Widodo responded by ordering an immediate cybersecurity audit and the implementation of robust backup strategies across all national data centres. The goal is to prevent similar incidents in the future, emphasising the need for comprehensive security measures.

Public dissatisfaction has grown in response to the government’s handling of the cyberattack. The attack impacted administrative services and caused significant disruptions at airports in Indonesia, where immigration systems were forced to operate manually due to the cyberattack’s effects on automated processes. The scale of the breach underscored existing vulnerabilities across government data management systems managed by PT Telkom Indonesia, whose subsidiary operated the compromised data centre.