On Sunday, June 9, 2024, during a public holiday, Emcali, the major public utility company in Cali,Colombia, faced a severe cyberattack. The incident began around 9:30 a.m., targeting critical systems including commercial, billing, and informational databases. Thanks to the swift action of Emcali’s IT management team, the attack was contained and neutralized within two hours.
Roger Mina, the company’s manager, revealed that the primary focus of the attack was on Emcali’s commercial information systems. Although the immediate threat was addressed quickly, the technical team continued to work for over 35 hours to secure and restore affected systems. The attackers seemed to aim at disrupting commercial applications to potentially extort the company.
Despite the rapid containment, Emcali remains vigilant due to ongoing latent threats. The company isolated its systems to prevent the attack’s spread and is now cautiously managing the reconnection phase, which poses additional risks.
Mina emphasized that while this was not the company’s first encounter with such cyber threats, Emcali is committed to enhancing its digital security. The company is investing in strengthening its cybersecurity measures to better protect its systems and ensure continued service reliability for its users.
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