Malawi’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services has disclosed that it is making significant progress towards resolving the cybersecurity breach that resulted in the disruption of the printing of passports.
When he presented his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the National Assembly on February 9, 2024, President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera revealed that the system had been hacked and that the hackers were demanding huge sums of money in ransom.
And when he launched Malawi Business Registration System and Land Information Management System on February 29, 2024, President Chakwera directed the department to rectify the problem within 21 days, stressing that he would not allow his people to continue suffering to get passports.
And barely four days after the directive, the department has announced that it is making significant progress in its efforts to resume issuance of the passports.
“The public may also wish to know that aside from the combined and tireless work of IT experts from the Department of E-Government in the Ministry of Information, the National Registration Bureau in the Ministry of Homeland Security, and the Department of Innovation and Creativity in the Office of the President and Cabinet, another directive the President issued five days ago to expand the recovery team to include IT experts from MACRA and ICT Association of Malawi (ICTAM) has been complied with. With such an army of experts working under continued vigilance of concerned Malawians, the deadline set by the President is within reach,” reads press release in part.
“We therefore thank all affected Malawians for continuing to exercise patience during this time, and any inconvenience caused in the meantime is sincerely regretted,” it adds.
The department has further informed Malawians holding valid passports that the demographic data loss as a result of the recent cybersecurity breach has been fully recovered.
It urges passport holders to guard their passports securely ‘because recent cybersecurity breach does not affect the validity, security, and usability of any passports already previously issued by the department.
