RUSTENBURG HERALD - RUSTENBURG - On Thursday, 7 August, the Rustenburg Local Municipality experienced an incident of security compromise (a cyber-attack) in that there had been an unauthorised access to or acquisition of information into the municipality ICT network systems. As a matter of fact, this incident not only had an impact on the administration of the municipality, but also poses a challenge in the delivery of services to the community.
As a result, the municipality embarked on an investigation to assess the extent of the breach of data in respect of information and whether the unauthorised access has caused any damage or loss to the municipality network system in order to report the incident to SAPS. Currently, the breach has been reported to the Information Regulator.
Restoring services to residents
The municipality’s IT personnel, together with the appointed external IT experts have been working expeditiously to contain the spread of the malware, recovering the information and restoring all the services to normality, to ensure that service delivery is not further hampered and/or delayed.
Restoring internal functionality
The IT department, and the external industry experts are still on site, and spending a great deal of time on bringing all internal systems back online. “The process is moving at an accelerated rate, and we can assure residents, that the municipality currently has everything under control.”
Loss of personal information
The forensic investigation is still ongoing, but RLM was alerted that some personal information might have been exfiltrated (ie data has been accessed and sent outside of the organisation). “We are still in the process of establishing the exact nature of the personal information that has been accessed (addresses, emails etc) as well as the parties involved, and we will communicate to you once the investigations have been finalised.”
Recovery efforts and risk mitigation
“As part of our ongoing recovery efforts, the municipality is putting in place measures to ensure that this type of breach does not re-occur and to minimise the risks. This exercise includes the upgrading of our ICT security infrastructure, anti-virus backups, anti-malware solutions etc, and proactive security and event monitoring, while ensuring more stringent access control both physically and electronically. The Executive Mayor Cllr Shiela Mabale-Huma, together with the Municipal Manager Adv Ashmar Khuduge, continue to work around the clock to ensure this challenge is resolved. The municipality sincerely apologises for the delays that have been experienced by our residents, and all our stakeholders.”
