{"id":176067,"date":"2017-05-21T07:48:08","date_gmt":"2017-05-21T05:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=176067"},"modified":"2017-05-21T07:48:08","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T05:48:08","slug":"telkom-hit-in-global-cyber-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/176067\/telkom-hit-in-global-cyber-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom hit in global cyber attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Telkom\u2019s customer platforms were affected by the recent global WannaCry ransomware attack, which impacted its customer services.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday morning,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/210918-big-problems-on-telkom-systems.html\"><strong>MyBroadband was alerted<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to the fact that Telkom\u2019s systems were experiencing problems.<\/p>\n<p>Problems included the telco&#8217;s USSD menus and apps not working, which prevented subscribers from buying data bundles, while voice mail systems and the company\u2019s call centre were also affected.<\/p>\n<p>Telkom spokeswoman Jacqui O\u2019Sullivan\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sundaytimes\/stnews\/2017\/05\/21\/WannaCry-makes-Telkom-clients-shed-some-tears1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>told the Sunday Times<\/strong><\/a> \u201cthe computer virus attack crippled some customer platforms, which were restored only on Thursday\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, Telkom \u201cthwarted attempts by the WannaCry hackers to freeze its systems so they could hold it to ransom\u201d.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Global WannaCry attack<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/WannaCry_ransomware_attack\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>The global WannaCry attack<\/strong><\/a> started on 12 May, infecting tens of thousands of PCs at large institutions across the globe, including the NHS in the UK and FedEx.<\/p>\n<p>The ransom demand from the attack was between $300 to $600, and the post noted that there is code to \u201cdelete files\u201d in the ransomware.<\/p>\n<p>Telkom was among many companies and organisations believed to have been targeted by the WannaCry attack in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIT security experts warned that further attacks were likely, and said the government and its agencies were particularly at risk due to their failure to upgrade software,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/it-services\/174963\/make-upgrades-free-or-face-more-ransomware-attacks-in-sa-expert\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Make upgrades free or face more ransomware attacks in SA \u2013 expert<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Telkom\u2019s customer platforms were affected by the recent global WannaCry ransomware attack, which impacted its customer services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":26856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[25,65],"class_list":["post-176067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-active","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176073,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176067\/revisions\/176073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}