South Africa’s Justice Ministry experiences delays to their services after ransomware attack

On 9th of September 2021, justice ministry of the South African government released a statement that the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development had experienced a security breach which was caused by ransomware on the evening of 6th September 2021. This attack led to all their information systems being encrypted and therefore unavailable to both internal employees as well as members of the public. This meant services that the department are responsible were affected including the issuing of letters of authority, bail services, email, and the departmental website.

The department went onto put their Business Continuity Plan in place and placed contingency measures to ensure that the incident wouldn’t further affect court operations around the country. This included “manual recording equipment will be used to ensure that court seatings continue as scheduled.”

They also stated that there is no current indication of any data being compromised yet as the department works with state agencies to investigate and rectify the incident.