Oil India Limited has received a ransom demand of USD 75,00,000 (over Rs 57 crore) in a major cyberattack which has disrupted its operations in Assam, officials said on April 13.
Reports said that a police case has been registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, 2000.
In its complaint, the public sector oil company said that it incurred a “huge financial loss” due to the ransomware attack as business through the IT system has been seriously affected.
Oil India manager (security) Sachin Kumar said that the ransomware cyberattack took place on April 10 at OIL’s one of the workstations of the geological and reservoir department, but it was intimated by the IT department on April 12.
“After their preliminary investigation, it came to their notice that Oil India Limited‘s network, server and clients’ PCs are facing network outage. Further, it also came to their notice that cyberattacker demanded USD 75,00,000 as a ransom through a note from the infected PC,” Kumar was quoted as saying in a PTI report.
The server, network and other related services of the company are affected, he added.
A senior Assam Police officer in Dibrugarh district said they registered a case under the various sections of the IPC and IT Act, and started an investigation into the matter.
Oil india Limited spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika told PTI from its field headquarters in Duliajan that the company is working on repairing the system in phases and “it will take time”.
“Our online systems are down and we are working offline. The drilling and production work has been unaffected. The data are being saved offline now and it will be uploaded later when the IT system will run again,” he said.
