The Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts (ARTP) of Senegal is yet to confirm reports suggesting that its data has been compromised due to hacking.
By Oumar Dembélé
However it seems the ransomware hacker’s group Karakurt has made good on its threat to hack the ARTP system.
Since Monday 17 October, it has been publishing files supposedly belonging to the staff of the Senegalese telecom regulator, the result being that sensitive documents of individuals have been rendered freely available on the internet.
Last June the hackers in question allegedly demanded thousands of dollars from ARTP to prevent them going public with such information, which is “149 gigabytes in size.”
The regulator did not respond to the payment demand, leaving Karakurt to carry out its threat.
After revelations by the media, the alleged hacking was denied by officials of the ARTP.
“There are at least fifty telecommunications and postal regulatory authorities in the world. In the alert message published in English, there is no mention of Senegal. I am currently on our website and everything is working perfectly. This attack does not concern our structure,” the head of the ARTP communication department told local online news sites.
Through the course of inquiries by APA, the official said its communication team is “still waiting for more official details” from the competent services of ARTP, adding that the Director General Abdoul Ly was unavailable.
In September, the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA), headquartered in Dakar, was also the target of a computer hacking using ramsomware.
”Ransomware is malicious software that takes personal data hostage. The attack consists of encrypting personal data and then asking their owners to send money in exchange for the key to decrypt them” Senegal’s ethical hacker Saliou Thiam tells APA.
Hacker group Lockbit demanded a ransom of $25,000 from Asecna, which did not prefer to comment on the incident.
Active since 2019, Lockbit has been responsible for 1,200 cyber attacks since its creation, according to Mr Thiam.
“They are currently number one in terms of ransomware attacks. They have developed a new strategy, demanding money directly from victims and not making the attack public,” he adds.
ODL/id/lb/as/APA