GPL system hacked, ransom demanded
There is confirmation that the systems of Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) came under a cyber attack last week.
From disclosures, too, demands were made to the state-owned company for payments to release control of the systems but GPL refused to buckle.
As of yesterday, the E-billing site allowed persons to log in but the account information remained down.
Yesterday, Chief Executive Officer, Albert Gordon, admitted that “an incident” had occurred but GPL’s backup had kicked in.
Last week, the collections system was down for a while, he said.
Asked specifically to confirm reports that a ransom was last week made, Gordon said, “Let me not be that specific but there was something that would have led to that.”
GPL is reportedly using a Chinese built fibre-optic cable network for some of its system. There have been concerns about the technology of Huawei, a Chinese communication giant that has been doing work around the globe.
It is under the microscope now.
It is unclear whether Huawei’s equipment, including that cable, is part of the GPL systems.
What is known is that a Chinese fibre optic cable has been linking GPL’s operations.
According to Director of GPL’s Information Technology Department, Vijay Datadin, said last week, there was a “bit of a problem. Some systems were down due t
GPL came under a cyber attack recently, officials have confirmed.
o precautionary actions,” he said.
There was some trouble on part of the systems and to protect the integrity, GPL’s IT team isolated parts of it and have been working to bring them back online.
According to Datadin, there are indeed growing cyber threats that are emerging, but GPL has been looking at the situation and taking advice, even working with government teams.
He said that the Customer Information System is up and running.
A few areas of the CIS were down last week.
Asked about the nature of the hacking, Datadin said that hacking is a broad term that insinuates spying among other thing, including from overseas or someone who is working with the company using a password that may have been wrongfully obtained.
He admitted that there was an “attempt” from outside and it was handled.
With regards to GPL’s systems, Datadin noted that the company does not run one system. There are several.
The financial system of GPL is intact with suppliers and workers being paid as normal. Customers who have prepaid meters were not affected, he said.
Last Thursday, GPL said it experienced a disruption in its computerized systems and PBX (telephone system).
“Our Prepaid customers have not been affected by this disruption. Customers attempting to contact the company’s Customer Call Centre and visiting the Customer Service Centres to conduct queries and other services have been affected. Our Customer Call Centre service has since been restored to normalcy.
The company is working assiduously to restore normalcy to its operations. GPL sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this disruption may have caused.”
