REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Cyberattacks have increased lately, ahead of the simultaneous legislative and presidential elections to be held in April next year. The National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) revealed the statement in Jakarta on Wednesday.

"From January to October 2018, BSSN had detected 207.9 million trojan attacks and 36 million malware activities, mostly targeting domains of ac.id, co.id, and go.id," Djoko Setiadi, the chairman of BSSN, remarked while speaking before participants of a seminar on dissemination of information on cyber threats in 2018. The seminar is themed "Materializing Conducive Cyber Space To Support Implementation of the 2019 Legislative and Presidential Elections."

Earlier, the agency had reported that a total of 143.6 million cyberattacks occurred during the January-June 2018 period. Incessant precautionary measures are crucial to deal with the increased incidents of cyberattacks, according to Setiadi.

Moreover, some 2,363 complaints were received by the public, of which 61 percent were related to fraud. He expressed concern over cyberattacks having developed fast, even swifter than the progress in technology and the capability to take precautionary measures, so it is risky and could trigger a crisis in every field at a massive scale of dissemination.

"It needs collaboration and synergy involving various stakeholders of national cybersecurity to build trust, capability, and a mechanism of fast coordination to detect cyberattack threats, so they could be dealt with properly and curbed," he stated.

Hence, the agency organized the seminar and invited speakers from the Indonesian Association of Internet Providers, General Election Commission (KPU), General Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), National Police's Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim), state telecommunication PT Telkom, and prominent IT practitioners to discuss the trends of cyber threats and a scheme of precautionary measures to tackle them.

Participants of the seminar comprised representatives of government institutions, national critical information infrastructure, and digital economic companies. The seminar also discussed the results of cyberattacks during 2018 and forecasts on cyberattacks in 2019, particularly concerning attempts to disrupt the 2019 elections.

"This event is expected to improve the public's insight and awareness as well as care and vigilance concerning cyber security, so we are ready to face cyberattacks, particularly related to the implementation of the legislative and presidential elections," he added.

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