Hackers Breached Johannesburg’s Network In BTC Ransomware Attack

Hackers breach the computer networks of South Africa’s capital city Johannesburg in an attempt to make a BTC ransomware attack. Consequently, the city has shut down the website and suspended all of the services as a precaution as we are reading further in the Bitcoin Scams news.

At the time of the writing, the website of the city was still inaccessible. According to the reports, the group behind the bitcoin ransomware attack is a known group to the country as Shadow Kill Hackers. The hackers breached the website and demanded 4 bitcoin which is roughly $30,000 at the current Bitcoin price. This is not the first time that hackers attempt to get paid in Bitcoin since it is their preferred weapon of choice.

In their ransom note which was received by several employees of the city, Shadow Kill hackers claimed to have obtained very important information and confidential data from the city’s website:

 “All your servers 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 failure to pay the Bitcoin Ransom, the hackers have warned they will release publicly the sensitive data very soon. Some of the e-services that will be affected by the shutdown include some online billing services. Internet-based customer care services have also been suspended. An investigation into the BTC ransomware attack has already been launched and it will take up to 24 hours and maybe even more.

The cyber-attack on the Johannesburg city’s website and the demand for Bitcoin, came in a time when a couple of South African banks disclosed that their digital banking services had encountered internet problems. This included the Absa bank, the Standard Bank and three other banks. The incident is happening three months right after the city’s energy utility City Power was strongly hit by a Bitcoin ransomware. The cyber-attack resulted in the utility’s database getting further encrypted and applications and the network getting even more compromised. However, electricity generation and supply were not really affected.