Suva City Council Addresses Recent Cyber Breach Swiftly

The Suva City Council wishes to inform the public about a recent cyber-security attack which in turn led to the system outage recently. The Council acknowledges the serious nature of the situation, which has affected the Councils operations.

Last month the Council’s system was hacked by external parties withholding all of the internal data and demanding a ransom for its release. This breach has disrupted various operational functions, including service delivery and data management.

The Council acted swiftly to address the situation, assembling a cyber-team comprised of the Ministry of Communications Department of Information Technology & Computer Services staff, Fiji Police Force Cyber Unit, VT Solutions, Cyber Pacific and the SCC IT team. This team has been working diligently to restore the system and also enhance its security measures against future cyber-attacks.

SCC Acting Chief Executive Officer Mr. Tevita Boseiwaqa said: “The Council’s main priority has been to safeguard and recover all data affected by this attack, and we are pleased to inform significant progress in this regard. While this situation has delayed our service delivery and impacted operations, I commend the swift response from the skilled IT professionals involved, including the Ministry of Communications ITC Services, Fiji Police Force, VT Solutions and Cyber Pacific. We have now restored all our financial systems and payroll from the day of the attack and the team is still working to recover the rest of the data that was encrypted with the help of an external vendor, allowing the Council to resume operations. Our IT team is actively working towards regaining our full operational capacity, which is positive news.”

Mr. Boseiwaqa reassured the public of the Council’s dedication to preventing future breaches: “This has been a valuable learning experience for the Council, and we are committed to ensuring that such attacks do not recur. Over the past few weeks, our staff have worked diligently to maintain optimal service delivery, manually entering data into the server as needed. We sincerely apologize for the delays experienced during this time and are dedicated to keeping our ratepayers informed. The Council is urging everyone to continue cooperating with us as we work to fully restore the security and functionality of our operations.”

The Council would also like to acknowledge the continuous support of the Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Communications, Manoa Kamikamica & Minister for Local Government Maciu Nalumisa during this period.