BSSN Talks of Cyber Threats to Election

TEMPO.CO, Solo - The National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) spokesperson Ariandi Putra said that his side has identified at least two cyber threats related to the 2024 general elections, namely from the technical side and the social side. Most of the cyber threats to society, he added, come from the social side.

“We cannot deny that in the 2019 elections and previous elections, there were mothers and children who did not talk to each other because they had different political choices and there were also husbands and wives who ended up divorcing due to different political views,” Ariandi said in a press conference after the national meeting of the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) in Solo, Central Java, on Monday, September 25, 2023.

Ariandi said BSSN considered the information gate as a form of propaganda and agitation carried out by certain groups in determining how it was done in relation to emerging ideologies.

“What we are most concerned about are ideologies that contrast or conflict with Indonesia and Pancasila. So BSSN monitors what’s happening and campaigns on social media,” Ariandi explained.

On the technical side, he said that at the beginning of February, BSSN released cyber threat trends for 2023. The agency saw that there are three out of ten major threats that could potentially occur. They are data leaks, ransomware, and web defacement, or the like.

“We are making various efforts to mitigate them early,” Ariandi said.

One of the efforts, he added, was for BSSN to conduct cybersecurity training in tandem with the General Election Commission (KPU) and other related ministries or institutions.

Therefore, BSSN called on all stakeholders to help prevent cyber threats and attacks by optimizing cyber security control.

SEPTHIA RYANTHIE 

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