Vanuatu’s government has been taken offline for more than 11 days after an alleged cyber attack on servers in the country. The hack disabled the Pacific Island’s parliament, police and prime minister’s office websites.
It also removed the messaging system, intranet and online databases of schools, hospitals and other emergency services, as well as all government services and departments.
The shutdown has left the country’s population – around 315,000 people living on several islands – scrambling to complete basic tasks like paying taxes, charging bills and obtaining travel licenses and visas.
Essentially anyone with an email or gov.vu domain was affected, locals told the BBC.
“Anyone who tried to do anything with the government knew the system was broken,” said Ginny Stein, an Australian journalist and communications consultant. She has lived for years in Port Vila and left on Monday.
“My experience of trying to leave the country… well, they couldn’t operate. They were struggling to do basic things.”
She described significant delays in any request to the government as officials resorted to manual systems and, in many cases, even closed shop.
“You would walk into the offices and they would be closed, or they would send you away saying, ‘maybe come back next week, but we don’t know,'” she said.
Still, government staff did their best to keep things going – some using their emails and internet hotspots for essential work.
Instead of wire transfers, people were paid by checks. One official shared his experience of travelling from one department to another to get the relevant checks and approvals on a request. Others took notes manually.
