South African Johannesburg refused to pay hackers ransom in BTC

Authorities in the South African city of Johannesburg refused to pay a ransom of 4 BTC to hackers who attacked municipal information systems last week.

Hackers hacked last week
site of Johannesburg, the largest city in the Republic of South Africa and the capital of the province of Gauteng, demanding a ransom in bitcoins from the authorities. This information was confirmed by the city administration on its Twitter account, noting that the hacking affected many information systems of the city, including e-health and library services.

The hacking was accompanied by a ransom demand of 4 BTC, which the city administration was supposed to pay by October 28. Otherwise, the hackers threatened to upload all the compromised data to the Internet.

However, the city administration refused to pay the ransom, as reported by Funzela Ngobeni, financial director of the city’s information and communication technology group. He confirmed that the authorities will not yield to the demands of hackers. According to the administration, the city will be able to “restore the full functionality of the systems”, and has already restored the work of several important client systems.

“The city has always taken a position against the lawlessness of any nature and form,” added Ngobeni. “This cyber attack is seen not only as an attack on the city’s system, but also as an attack on the inhabitants of our city.”

According to the message
CNN on October 29, after the attack, hackers sent e-mails to administration officials demanding a transfer of BTC, which forced the authorities to shut down all systems in order to reduce the risks of further hacking.

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Europol posted earlier this month
another report on the assessment of organized crime threats on the Internet (IOCTA), which notes that most often attackers use ransomware viruses. Recall that at the beginning of the month, online operations in the Spanish city of Jerez de la Frontera were suspended as a result of an attack by hackers who demanded a ransom in bitcoins for unlocking the city’s computer systems.

In June, the authorities of the American city of Lake City paid ransomware in the amount of 42 BTC, and a little earlier the administration of the city of Riviera Beach paid a ransom in the amount of 65 BTC to unknown hackers who managed to take control of the computer system of the city.