City of Joburg suffers a computer network breach, website still down

Update: 4.30pm

The City of Joburg has said that its call centre for all its entities is centralised at the City of Johannesburg, with calls relating to City Power diverted to their team for auctioning.

“However, due to the hack of the City of Johannesburg’s systems and network, and the suspension and isolation of most of the City’s applications and systems as a precautionary measure, City Power customers may not be able to log calls to report any faults,” said the City.

“We therefore urge our customers to use our app, Citypower.mobi to log calls. The app is fast and effective with reference number created in less than five minutes.We urge the customers not to panic as the IT teams from all the City’s utilities and cyber security experts, have been working since last night to attend to this,” urged the City.

The customer billing system is also affected by this.

Other systems from City Power, including access to the website and vending for electricity are said not to be affected by this problem.

Initial report: 11am

The City of Johannesburg detected a network breach yesterday, 24 October, which is said to have resulted in unauthorised access to its information systems.

The City said their cyber experts are investigating the incident and have taken immediate and appropriate actions to reinforce security measures and mitigate any potential impacts of the breach.

Several customer-facing systems, such as the City’s website, e-services, billing centre and the call centre have been compromised.

The City expressed that the shutdown which is a precautionary measure is expected to last for 24 hours. A number of employees reported that they had received a ransom note that read, “All your servers have and data have been hacked. We have dozens of back doors inside your city. We have control of everything in your city. We also compromised all passwords and sensitive data such as finance  and personal population information.”

The City has advised all of their customers to postpone any visits to regional customer service centres. “Municipal account payments can be done via EFT and third party payment providers such as Checkers, Pick ‘n Pay and other, ” said the City in a released statement.

The City apologises for the inconvenience caused and will alert customers once new information becomes available.

Related article:

https://www.citizen.co.za/midrand-reporter/190343/cyberattacks-biggest-threat-to-south-african-businesses/