Pierluigi Paganini September 13, 2021

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development of South Africa was hit by a ransomware attack that crippled bail services.

A ransomware attack hit the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development of South Africa, multiple services, including email and bail services have been impacted.

The incident did not affect child maintenance payments for the month because they were already processed. The Department claims that no data has been exfiltrated by the ransomware operators.

The department revealed that the security breach took place on September 6, the IT staff notified law enforcement and is working with them to quickly restore the operations.

“This has led to all information systems being encrypted and unavailable to both internal employees as well as members of the public. As a result, all electronic services provided by the department are affected, including the issuing of letters of authority, bail services, e-mail and the departmental website.” spokesperson Steve Mahlangu said in a statement on Thursday

“The department would want to assure all affected parties that our IT teams are working tirelessly to restore services as soon as is practically possible.

“Child maintenance payments for month-end have already been processed and will therefore not be affected by the current system outage.”

Mahlangu added that the office of the chief master is using a manual process to provide the necessary documentation to bereaved families that need to bury their loved ones.

At the time of this writing there, the DOJCD has yet to reveal the ransomware family that infected its systems.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ransomware)

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