Pacific Island Nation of Vanuatu Has Been Knocked Offline For More Than a Month (npr.org) 27
The newly elected government in Pacific island nation of Vanuatu encountered a serious problem from the very first day of its term on Nov. 6 -- no one could use their government email accounts. But then the situation got worse. Much worse. From a report: Officials could not use any government computer services, from renewing a drivers' license to paying taxes or accessing medical and emergency information. They were forced to turn to 20th century technology -- pen and paper. That's a major problem in a nation where the population of around 320,000 people is distributed across dozens of islands north of New Zealand. "Imagine if in the U.S. or the U.K. or Australia, a new government has started and there's a whole changeover ... you can't even allocate email addresses to your new staff, you can't coordinate what's happening between ministers," Glen Craig, managing partner of the consulting firm Pacific Advisory, told NPR in a phone interview.
"We're the first country in the world that this has happened to. ... It's not a good time in Vanuatu, I can assure you," continued Craig, who also serves as chairman of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council. After more than three weeks of working on the problem, Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau told local news outlets Wednesday that services were 70 percent restored. However, the disruption continues. Vanuatu's government officials first discovered suspicious activity on their networks, many of which are centrally connected, on Nov. 6. They revealed the breach to local media several days later, but have so far been fairly tight lipped about the extent of the damage, the possible culprits, and what's being done to recover service. Some sources have suggested the attack was ransomware, in which cybercriminals break in and take data hostage in exchange for payment, though the government has not officially confirmed whether that's the case or addressed whether a ransom payment was made.
"We're the first country in the world that this has happened to. ... It's not a good time in Vanuatu, I can assure you," continued Craig, who also serves as chairman of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council. After more than three weeks of working on the problem, Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau told local news outlets Wednesday that services were 70 percent restored. However, the disruption continues. Vanuatu's government officials first discovered suspicious activity on their networks, many of which are centrally connected, on Nov. 6. They revealed the breach to local media several days later, but have so far been fairly tight lipped about the extent of the damage, the possible culprits, and what's being done to recover service. Some sources have suggested the attack was ransomware, in which cybercriminals break in and take data hostage in exchange for payment, though the government has not officially confirmed whether that's the case or addressed whether a ransom payment was made.
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I want to know what happened, how it happened, and what you're going to do about it.
But you do not want a pony. Right??
maybe it was the previous administration. (Score:3)
maye they really don't like the new guys....
just speculation.
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maybe it was the previous administration
It was either 'Fives Eyes' or CCP; it helps to know what's going on lately - which I don't pretend to.
Re: maybe it was the previous administration. (Score:1)
Not Five Eyes.
Vanuatu only exists as a functioning entity because of Australia (and a bit of NZ).
Oz props everything up. Go to Vanuatu and get sick and you'll go to an Aussie run hospital with Aussie docs and a health department thats basically set up and run by Aussies. The locals snooze under trees and a few wear suits and pretend to be the Boss Man but everyone knows who keeps the whole thing afloat. The number of Aussie "advisors" to the Vanuatu government is high.
Oz would rather help them than let the
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Computers do not improve bureacratic efficiency (Score:2)
Agricultural machinery has decimated the agricultural workforce from 90% to under 10% of the population. But computers have not reduced bureaucracy, quite the opposite.
As Parkinson pointed out long ago, the size of a bureaucracy is independent of its functions. All computers do is enable more and more complex bureaucratic controls, plus a new bureaucracy to manage the computers themselves.
A place like Vanuatu would do much better to have zero computers. Work with stuff they can understand, paper document
I'm no longer mad at all the Vanutuatians (Score:2)
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The demonyms are Vanuatuan and Ni-Vanuatu.
Either inside job or just massive screwup (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact they're not giving any details suggests either that it was an inside job and they don't want to admit it, or they screwed up massively and don't want to admit that. There's no other reason for this level of secrecy. The attackers know what they did.
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There were reports in other places (which I can't seem to find now) that pointed to a breach at the MSP that they contract with as the cause.
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At first I assumed as you did that it was probably some massive screw-up if they weren't telling their customers anything. But apparently that is not always the case. It was 24 hours before they even admitted that it was a "security incident" and then we were all left wonderin
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heh heh... "How did the ransomware attack happen?
The investigation is ongoing and will take time to complete. Alongside our internal security team, we have engaged a leading cyber defense firm to investigate. The investigation is ongoing and is in its early stages."
So either they don't know what happened, or they do know what happened, but don't know who to blame yet :D
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There's no other reason for this level of secrecy.
None that you were able to think of.
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I think what's even worse would be if it was an inside job by _one disgruntled low level person_.
I bet their main admin password was 'Password' and someone changed it as their last act before leaving for good.
Ransomware would be bad, but even worse is a bricked system where the culprit can't be found and hates you too much to even offer a ransom.
Windows? (Score:2)
What kind of computers are they using?
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This could explain the Raspberry Pi compute module shortage!
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What kind of computers are they using?
Someone else's (Rackspace) hosted Exchange service.
Is it the whole island? (Score:2)
Xanadu is where the locals get down (Score:2)
...or just the government? I.e. are Vanuatuan(?) residents offline as well?
Meanwhile over in Xanadu [youtu.be] everyone is singing and dancing and skating all over the place right now! It's like Vanuatu never even existed.
Wow! (Score:2)