Colombo (LNW): A severe data loss affecting all government offices using the ‘gov.lk’ email domain has recently occurred, confirmed the The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) in a statement.
A number of government offices using the ‘govt.lk’ email domain including the Cabinet office was affected by the data loss, and the crisis is believed to have been caused by a large-scale ransomware attack between May 17 and August 26, the Director for Strategic Communications of ICTA said in a statement.
Approximately 5,000 email addresses were impacted by the ransomware attack, and as there was neither an offline nor online backup system for a critical period of two months, several emails that were lost due to the attack are now irrecoverable, the statement added.
In the backdrop, ICTA has taken a measure to institute daily offline backup process, with other application processes being upgraded to the latest version with enhanced defences against malware attacks.
Efforts are being made to recover the lost data in a joint effort by ICTA and the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SLCERT).
