Bermuda government hit by cyber attack

“There has been an incident, which is affecting not only the Bermuda government but some other regional governments as well.

“Our initial indication is it’s come from an external source, most likely from Russia, and we are working with agencies to make sure that we can identify any particular challenges and make sure that services are restored as quickly as possible,” Premier David Burt has said.

Burt said that while the government is in the early stages of confirming what happened on Thursday afternoon, no digital information had been lost.

The incident led to Thursday’s postponement of the sitting of the House of Assembly.

The government had earlier advised the public that its telephone, internet and e-mail systems were disrupted and that all departments were affected.

The Bermuda Police Service  (BPS) said that its services were functioning and that emergency and non-emergency telephone numbers were operating as usual.

Premier Burt said that various teams were working with “local partners, engaging all hands, overseas partners and there may be a need to engage further” to establish the source of the incident.

He said the Minister of Tourism and the Cabinet Office, Vance Campbell, who oversees IT, would be able to provide an update “as things become clearer.

“What we are focused on right now is just making sure that we identify any challenges. It does not at this point in time appear that any data has been taken, so that’s at this point in time but it does appear that systems are affected.

“We are trying to identify which systems are affected, which ones are not so that we can return to servicing persons, so people at TCD, people at immigration et cetera, can get the government services which they rely on.”

He said the Ministry of National Security will be consulting with external agencies, adding “we do know at least one other country that has been affected; suspected on the same level of attack.

“There’s been significant investment that has been made recently to improve government security, recognising and understanding that we’ve been moving many items over to the cloud.

“Cloud services have not been affected.”