BSI Improves IT System Following Service Error: Upgrading Antivirus, Performing Cyber Attack Simulation

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Bank Syariah Indonesia, or BSI, director of sales and distribution, Anton Sukarna, said his office has strengthened its IT system following the error on May 8, 2023, by upgrading antivirus and increasing IT spending.

“All of our antiviruses must be upgraded, can you imagine, we have tens of thousands of PCs across Indonesia, all of the apps must also be upgraded,” he told Tempo when met at the Tempo office in South Jakarta on Thursday, May 25.

He said that the process needs time and that is what causes the bank's system to experience long errors. Therefore, it can not immediately activate all the systems. So it takes time to guarantee that all systems are in proper condition.

“We have hundreds of systems in our applications. There are high-priority, medium-priority, and low-priority systems. So, we just need to upgrade some of it first," he said.

In addition, he went on, banks in general, including BSI, have its penetration test (pen test) standard, which is a standard applied in various industries related to digital.

BSI uses vendors from abroad to conduct the pen test process. The vendor will find which part of the BSI system is not strong enough by performing cyber attack simulations before being repaired. He viewed the process as normal. 

Overall, Anton said, learning from the recent cyber attack, BSI will increase spending on its IT infrastructure. 

BSI's IT networks experienced an error on May 8. As a result, the customers could not make a transaction both at the ATM or on the BSI Mobile service. On May 10, BSI announced in a press conference that the services had returned to normal, but several customers still complained of errors. 

BSI remains tight-lipped on the cause of the error and is still waiting for the digital forensic audit and investigation. Meanwhile, a ransomware hacker group LockBit claimed to be the cause of the disturbance, then stole and leaked 15 million customer data, employee information, and around 1.5 terabytes of internal data belonging to BSI on the dark web.

Moh. Khory Alfarizi

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