After hacker attack: emergency operation before Christmas
Following the hacker attack on more than 70 local authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia, they are to offer the most important services again in an emergency operation before Christmas. This was announced by the service provider Südwestfalen-IT on Tuesday. For three weeks, the citizen services of the municipalities with a total of around 1.7 million inhabitants have been practically paralyzed.
This includes the issuing of ID cards, passports and driving licenses, the registration of births, deaths and marriages, the payment of currently calculated social welfare benefits and housing benefit, vehicle registration and services provided by the immigration authorities.
Forensic analysis has now shown that the emergency shutdown of the systems prevented the worst and stopped the attack, it was reported in Hemer on Tuesday. Although the core system was affected by the attack, it was possible to prevent it from spreading to the systems of the municipalities and districts.
The unaffected parts are now to be gradually restarted, but the affected part of the data center will have to be rebuilt. No evidence of data theft has been discovered. In the meantime, neighboring districts that were not affected are providing assistance with vehicle registrations. The payment of social benefits is based on the October data status.
Upon noticing the hacker attack, the service provider Südwestfalen-IT immediately shut down all systems on October 30. A hacker group called "Akira" is believed to be behind the attack. Cities, municipalities and districts are affected, particularly in South Westphalia, but also in the Ruhr region and the Rheinisch-Bergisch district.
In response to the hacker attack, the affected municipalities are considering implementing additional security measures to protect their online services from similar incidents in the future. Despite the restored services, some citizens may still face temporary inconveniences due to the limited functionality of the Internet-dependent services during the emergency operation.
Source: www.dpa.com
