THE Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) has denied claims that its system was hacked and that the hackers demanded ransom.
This after claims were made that the pension fund was hacked two weeks ago, and hackers demanded millions from the entity.
The rumours were sparked by a statement release by GEPF after their system went offline following a detected attempt to gain unauthorised access on their system on 16 February.
The statement reads: “The GPAA has since established that the fund’s information communication system experienced an attempt to gain unauthorised access to GEPF systems. As part of their security measures, the GPAA shut down all systems to isolate affected areas and prevent any breaches.”
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Speaking to Daily Sun, GEPF spokesman Rakgathwa Mokou said they were not hacked and there was no ransom demand made to them.
“The Government Pensions Administration Agency (GPAA) has been working to restore its systems in a phased manner and this process will be concluded in a few days. The GPAA has since restored regional office and call centre systems, and members and pensioners can now visit GEPF offices to submit claims and be assisted with other enquiries,” he said.
Mokou said that organisations continuously improve their security measures to prevent such unauthorised attempts.
“This is no different for the GPAA and GEPF. While this is the case, there are no guarantees that no such attempts would recur. With regard to this incident, it's important to note that our systems detected the attempt, allowing the GPAA to stop the attempt,” he said.
