Consequences of attack on IT systems in Antwerp will last until the end of January

All in all, the consequences of the hack on the IT systems of the city of Antwerp will last until the end of January. That’s what Mayor Bart De Wever says. In the coming days, Antwerp will first bring the most important systems back online.

The systems that ensure that people ‘really experience a disadvantage’ are the first to return, says De Wever to HLN. That should happen in the coming days. “We have chosen to do this in a 100 percent safe environment. We could start everything much faster, but then you cannot be sure that you will not run into problems again.” It is not clear what exactly that ‘100 percent safe environment’ means. The last systems should be back online by the end of January.

It is still not clear what data the hacker group has captured. “We will be as transparent as possible about this as soon as we can, but that is with certain degrees of uncertainty. That makes me nervous.” More information may be released from the city on Monday.

Hacker group Play would put data from Antwerp residents online on Monday. Last weekend, Antwerp suddenly disappeared from the Play site, where it keeps track of which hacks are current. That suggests the city may have paid or at least negotiated. According to De Wever, this is not correct, but it is unclear why Antwerp has disappeared from the site.

At the beginning of December, the IT systems of the city of Antwerp were hit by a cyber attack with ransomware from the hacker group Play. That group stole 557 gigabytes of data. The data would contain many private details of Antwerp residents. Play continually hacks government sites and services around the world. The group makes money by demanding ransoms not to publish private data.