Ransomware Attack on Electric Power Grid in South Africa Encrypt’s the Entire Network

Hackers attack Electric utility City Power on Johannesburg, South Africa using powerful ransomware and take down the entire network, applications, and database.

Recent days threat actors mainly targeting the government network, cities, municipalities around the world to demand the huge amount of ransom.

The attackers hit the power grid with unknown ransomware and encrypt all the data which blocks the client to buy electricity from its website.

City Power’s Twitter feed offered the following details: “City Power has been hit by a Ransomware virus. it has encrypted all our databases, applications and network. Currently, our ICT department is cleaning and rebuilding all impacted applications.

Followed by the previous tweet, another tweet stated that the ransomware infection let customer stop uploading the invoice and buying electricity from their own website.

A voice message on City Power’s phone helpline says “Dear customers, please note that we are currently experiencing a problem with our prepaid vending system,”

According to spokesperson Isaac Mangena “Customers will be able to access vending and buy electricity. However, work is still continuing on some systems and applications that were affected including the uploading of invoices by our suppliers, and logging faults by customers on the website,” 

The U.S. Conference of Mayor’s report said, As of July 2019, ransomware attacks have hit at least 170 county, city, or state government systems since 2013, and 22 of those attacks occurred in the first half of 2019.

City Power has created a temporary alternative to their customers and the experts are currently investigating the cause of this attack.

The very recent tweet stated that ” So far most of the IT applications and networks that were affected by the cyberattack have been cleaned up and restored “

“However, work is still continuing on some systems and applications that were affected including the uploading of invoices by our suppliers, and logging faults by customers on the website”

You can read the complete guide of Ransomware Attack Response and Mitigation Checklist.

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