Johannesburg’s government website has been hacked by a group of cybercriminals. The hackers have demanded four bitcoins in ransom to revive the website and not reveal their data on the internet. The website was hacked on Friday, and the hackers gave the deadline till 5 pm on October 28, which is today.
At the time of writing, the price of 4 bitcoins is equal to 37,680 US dollars. The incident is currently being investigated by the City of Johannesburg cybersecurity experts. The city tweeted that it had “detected a network breach which resulted in unauthorized access to our information systems.”
[ON AIR] The City of Johannesburg's website has been hacked. For a broader look at cybersecurity Andrew Sjoberg, the Chief Technical Officer of DRS joins us. #TheRundown with @MichelleL_Craig Courtesy #DStv403 pic.twitter.com/D2qyeuKjt8
— eNCA (@eNCA) October 25, 2019
Local security experts and police are currently investigating the hack. Hackers have also threatened to compromise all passwords and sensitive data such as finance and personal population information. At the same time, several banks reported internet problems that could be related to the hack.
