The City of Johannesburg has been hit by yet another security breach, and expects its systems to be unavailable for at least 24 hours.
The Joburg.org.za web site is today offline, while a message on the city’s Twitter feed reads:
“The City of Johannesburg has detected a network breach which resulted in unauthorised access to is information systems.
“The incident is currently being investigated by the City of Joburg cyber security experts, who have taken appropriate actions to reinforce security measures and mitigate any potential impacts.
“As a result, several customer-facing systems – including the City’s website, e-services, billing system (SAP ISU and CRM) – have been shut for as a precautionary measure.
“The investigation, which is set to take 24 hours, means that customers will not be able to transact on e-service or log queries via the City’s Call Centre of Customer Service Centres.
“All emergency calls have been diverted to the Provincial Call Centre (112).
“We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
This is the second time in just a few months that the city has fallen victim to cybercrime. In July a ransomware attack shut down systems and affected billing.
The latest attack appears to be another ransomware attempt, with a screen shot circulating on social media showing a demand for bitcoin from a group calling itself the Shadow Kill Hackers.
“All your servers and data have been hacked,” the message on city employees’ computers reads. “We have dozens of back doors inside your city. We have control of everything in your city. We also compromised all passwords and sensitive data such as finance and personal population information.”