Angola’s largest telecommunications operator, Unitel, announced on Thursday, 6 August, the completion of its service restoration following a cyber attack that knocked out mobile voice, messaging, data and internet access across the country — a week-long disruption that struck at a particularly sensitive moment for the company, which had only recently debuted on the Angolan stock exchange.
In a market statement, Unitel said it had concluded the re-establishment of its services — including those of third parties operating over its network — by 5 August, one week after a cyber attack hit the company’s technological infrastructure in the early hours of 28 July.
The operator reiterated that it had been the target of ‘a deliberate and directed attack’ against its technological infrastructure, which caused the partial unavailability of services nationwide. It said it had immediately activated containment mechanisms and business continuity plans, with service restoration proceeding in a gradual and structured manner.
Unitel said it would continue in the coming days to carry out optimisation and monitoring work on its infrastructure and to normalise complementary systems. It advised customers experiencing residual disruptions to contact its customer support service.
The company said it is working with national authorities and specialists in cybercrime to establish the relevant facts surrounding the incident, and committed to publishing its findings to the extent that doing so does not compromise information security or interfere with the ongoing investigation.
Unitel condemned the attack ‘in the strongest terms’ and said that investments made in strengthening its cybersecurity model had enabled it to contain the incident and achieve a ‘gradual and structured’ recovery of services. The company also thanked collaborating authorities, in particular government bodies, state defence and security organs, regulators and other companies in the sector, and reaffirmed its commitment to service reliability, security and quality.
Despite the announcement that services have returned to normal, several key aspects of the episode remain publicly unresolved: the identity and motivation of those behind the attack, the veracity of an alleged ransom demand in cryptocurrency, and the precise financial impact the incident will have on the operator.
The timing made the disruption particularly consequential. Unitel is still consolidating its newly established presence on the Angolan bourse, and the week-long outage exposed thousands of customers, businesses and financial institutions to the fragility of an economy that has grown deeply dependent on a single telecommunications infrastructure.
Source: Mercado / Original article: https://mercado.co.ao/do-ataque-a-normalizacao-os-sete-dias-que-abalaram-a-unitel/
