Jakarta. State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir has voiced support for an audit investigation at his ministry aimed at uncovering new details about the perpetrators behind the cyberattack on the Temporary National Data Center 2 (PDNS 2), involving Telkomsigma, a subsidiary of Indonesia's state-owned telecommunications company, Telkom Indonesia.

"I support the audit investigation, but I refrain from engaging in politics. I am a professional and advocate for the removal of corrupt and incompetent individuals," Thohir told reporters in Jakarta's Old Town area on Wednesday.

Thohir emphasized his readiness to dismiss any ministry staff found guilty of negligence in connection with allegations concerning Telkomsigma.

"We fully endorse this effort, and anyone found incompetent will be removed," Thohir stated.

The ministerial action is part of the government's commitment to resolve and eliminate the recent ransomware attack on PDNS 2.

"Recently, the Director-General of Communications and Information Technology resigned, and I support Mr. Hadi Tjahjanto's approach to rectify all inadequacies as directed by the president," he added.

Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the former Director-General of Informatics Applications at the Ministry of Communications and Informatics, resigned following the breach, which significantly disrupted public services, particularly immigration services. The compromised data in PDNS 2 remains unusable and unrecoverable, but affected government services have resumed.

A former Lintasarta employee is allegedly responsible for the data breach, but its parent company Indosat confirmed that the individual has not been employed by Lintasarta since 2021. The affected server is the temporary national data center number 2, while Indosat’s subsidiary Lintasarta manages facility number 1, the company explained.

Earlier, Chairperson of the House of Representatives Commission I, Meutya Hafid, revealed negligence by Telkomsigma employees led to the PDNS 2 system breach in Surabaya.

Reza Permana Topobroto, Vice President for Legal and Compliance at Telkomsigma, stated the company is fully cooperating with the Ministry of Communications and Informatics and the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) to recover compromised government data and restore services.

The hacker group Brain Cipher, responsible for the attack, announced plans to release decryption keys for the hacked data. They initially demanded an $8 million ransom but later pledged to provide the keys for free.

Brain Cipher apologized to the Indonesian public for the disruption caused, asserting that the attack was not politically motivated.

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