A ransomware attack has been confirmed as the cause of the shutdown of the Indonesian government’s national data center.

The data center, known as the Pusat Data Nasional (PDN) and operated by the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kominfo), was hit by ransomware criminals on June 20.

This impacted as many as 210 institutions in the country, but most notably the digital services for immigration. Visas, passports, and residence permits were unable to be digitally processed, leading to long queues in the country’s airports. By June 24, normal operations are said to have resumed.

The Indonesian Minister of Law and Human Rights, Yasonna Laoly, has confirmed that this was achieved by migrating the immigration data to Amazon Web Services (AWS). This was completed within 12 hours of the initial problems at the Kominfo PDN.

“Yes, we were forced to migrate to AWS. So while we're waiting for the PDN to be restored, what are our contingency solutions? We're using Amazon first,” Yasonna said.

Yasonna did not confirm whether this would be a long-term move, adding: "Let's just wait for the PDN [to return to normal]."

According to reports by local news outlet Tempo.co, the hackers demanded $8 million (Rp131 billion) in return for the stolen data. The ransomware that caused the lockdown is thought to be a variant of LockBit 3.0, with local officials calling it 'Brain Cipher.'

According to Pratama Persadha, Indonesia’s Cybersecurity Research Institute chairman, the cyberattack is the most severe to hit the Indonesian government since 2017.

“The disruption to the national data center and days-long needed to recover the system means this ransomware attack was extraordinary,” Persadha said. “It shows that our cyber infrastructure and its server systems were not being handled well.”

Deputy Kominfo Minister Nezar Patria has speculated that the hackers are likely from abroad, and the government’s current stance is that it will not pay the ransom

Regardless, a report from today quotes government officials as saying that the data center impacted by the disruption is now beginning to recover gradually and that the government is making efforts to retrieve the data.

Indonesia’s first PDN facility is located in Bekasi, near Jakarta, Indonesia, and is expected to be fully completed later this year. Plans for the facility were announced in 2022, and the government is developing other PDN’s in the country located in Batam, and IKN Nasuntara.