By: Laurel Marewibuel
NGERULMUD, Palau — “No new or recent digital residency data files have been compromised,” Palau’s Digital Residency Office Director and Chief Information Security Officer J.H. Anson said Thursday, as the government warned of renewed cyber threats following an extortion attempt linked to older documents.
The government confirmed that actors claiming affiliation with the Dragon Force hacking group attempted to extort the provider of Palau’s Digital Residency Program using outdated files stolen during the March 2024 ransomware attack. Officials stressed that no 2025 data was accessed and that Palau retains full sovereign ownership of Digital Residency records, which are stored offline and can only be released by court order through the Attorney General.
“The program remains fully sovereign under Palau,” Anson said, adding that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over its operations. He clarified there is no lawsuit against the program. While he was subpoenaed as a witness in a U.S. financial crimes investigation, he emphasized that the subpoena does not place the program, its data, or Palau’s legal authority at risk.
The March 2024 cyberattack exposed roughly 25,000 government files from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Human Resources, Culture, Tourism and Development. Since then, the government has expanded monitoring at entry points and endpoints across its systems, despite limited resources. Anson said recent logs showed the Qilin ransomware group made more than 14,000 failed attempts to breach Finance before targeting the Ministry of Health and Human Services in February.
Palau continues to urge employees and the public to be cautious of phishing and social engineering attempts, avoid suspicious links or attachments, and report unusual activity. Annual cybersecurity training is provided through the Ministry of Finance, and expanded digital security education remains a government priority, despite its removal from the FY2026 Senate budget.
Officials said the extortion attempt was contained, with no breach detected. The attempt was simply a demand for money using old documents. The networks are secure, the data is protected, and the sovereignty of Palau’s Digital Residency program is intact.