Indonesia's national data center has been hacked for $8 million

Indonesian officials say a cyber attack on the country's national data center has affected hundreds of government offices.

Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, a senior communications ministry official, said Monday that hackers had breached Indonesia's national data center in recent days, affecting 210 agencies at the national and local levels. There have been delays at the capital's main airport and hackers have demanded a ransom of US $8 million (S $10.81 million).

Last week, the system at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport was paralyzed after an attack, leading to long queues at immigration gates. Pangelappan said immigration services had returned to normal by Monday morning and efforts were under way to restore other affected operations.

He said the hackers used the "Brain Cipher" software developed by LockBit, a Russian ransomware company. The software uses encryption to make government data inaccessible. Indonesian authorities are still investigating the software.

LockBit and its affiliates have previously attacked targets such as governments, large corporations, schools and hospitals, causing billions of dollars in damage and extorting tens of millions of ransoms, according to reports.

The United States, Britain and Australia announced sanctions against LockBit leaders in May. The British government said the group was responsible for a quarter of ransomware attacks worldwide last year, with LockBit extorting more than $1 billion from thousands of victims worldwide.

According to Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, the top five countries hit by LockBit attacks are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and China.