Maldives government websites experience outage, cyber attack suspected

The Maldives government websites suffered an apparent cyberattack Saturday evening. The official websites of the president's office, foreign ministry and tourism ministry were unreachable for hours.

While the president's office website was restored, the foreign and tourism ministry sites remained down as of Sunday. Users saw error messages when trying to access them.

Local reports indicated a suspected cyberattack caused the disruption. The president's office tweeted that its website faced "unexpected technical disruption" and relevant agencies were addressing it promptly.

Please note that the President’s Office website is currently facing an unexpected technical disruption. NCIT and other relevant entities are actively working on resolving this promptly.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Thank you for your understanding and patience. pic.twitter.com/jUOopsQTUs

— The President's Office (@presidencymv) January 6, 2024

It apologised for the inconvenience as authorities scrambled to restore the affected government websites. The nature of the incident and the culprits behind the suspected attack remain unclear amid the ongoing investigation.