Government system hacked

MASERU-HACKERS attacked the government’s financial system and stopped payments last week.
The attack triggered panic among senior government officials, including ministers, who feared that they could lose crucial data and money.
Finance Minister Thabo Sofonea told Parliament on Monday that the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS), the government’s payment system was paralysed from Wednesday to Friday last week.

Sofonea said the police are investigating. There is however doubt that the police are up to the task, given the complex nature of cybercrime.
IFMIS provides an integrated computerised financial package to the effectiveness and transparency of public resource management by automating the budget management and accounting system for the government.

The IFMIS is the bedrock of the government’s financial transactions. Without it, the government cannot pay salaries, buy products and pay suppliers.
Sofonea said they realised the problem last Wednesday when the government’s payment system was in disarray.

“But I was made aware on Thursday when everything came to a halt and we could not process any payments countrywide,” Sofonea said.
He said the attack started from one machine when an advert was opened.
“Some people in the civil service were attracted to the advert and when they opened it, unaware that it was a dangerous bait, the entire system was hacked,” he said.

He said all the machines were forced to shut down completely.
He said the police have launched investigations “to find out if it was done maliciously or not”.
He also said from now on they will ensure that their firewalls are protected and never leave loopholes for hackers to penetrate.
“The system is now being cleaned back to normality,” he said.
He said for now the operations have restarted and things will be back to normal soon.

“The Tanzanian experts are here to help and they are already working.”
He said all Microsoft software files were corrupt and could not open at the time.
The minister however said he doesn’t think “sensitive information was lost in the process”.

“We use it even at sub accountancy offices in the districts,” he said.
“I am sure we will try to improve our security.”
He said they are becoming wise when things like this happen and they realise some windows for plan B options.
“This was a wake-up call to us as hackers are out there trying to hack systems.”
He also said their major fear was losing all their information including the paid and unpaid suppliers of the government.

Nkheli Liphoto