The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has been knocked offline for more than a month. The prime minister says about 70% of services have been restored, but officials haven't commented on a cause or whether ransom was paid.
Mario Tama/Getty ImagesA Dec. 07, 2019, aerial view of the coastline of Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.The newly elected government in Pacific island nation of Vanuatu encountered a serious problem from the very first day of its term on Nov. 6Officials could not use any government computer services, from renewing a drivers' license to paying taxes or accessing medical and emergency information.
After more than three weeks of working on the problem, Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau told local news outlets Wednesday that services were 70 percent restored.Vanuatu's government officials first discovered suspicious activity on their networks, many of which are centrally connected, on Nov. 6.
The Australian government is on site helping local officials. Pat Conroy, Australia's minister for international development and the Pacific, told Vanuatu Daily in late November that Australia"sent in a team to assist with that disgraceful cyberattack and the response." Other strategies include heavily publicizing intelligence on cybercrime, helping victims recover their files rather than pay ransoms, and extraditing cybercriminals from overseas to be tried in U.S. courts.
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