WELLINGTON, New Zealand – The New Zealand central bank said on Sunday that one of its data systems was breached by an unidentified hacker who potentially accessed commercially and personally sensitive information.
An outsourced file-sharing service used by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to share and store confidential information has been accessed illegally, the Wellington bank said in a statement.
Governor Adrian Orr said the breach was contained. The bank’s basic functions “remain solid and operational,” he said.
“We are working closely with national and international cybersecurity experts and other relevant authorities as part of our investigation and response to this malicious attack,” said Orr.
“The nature and extent of the information potentially accessed is still being determined, but it may include some confidential business and personal information,” added Orr.
The system was protected and taken offline until the bank completed its initial investigations.
“It will take some time to understand all the implications of this breach and we are working with users of the system whose information may have been accessed,” said Orr.
The bank declined to answer questions by email seeking further details.
It is not clear when the breach occurred or if there was any indication of who was responsible and in which country the file sharing service is located.
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Several major organizations in New Zealand were the target of cyber interference last year, including the New Zealand Stock Exchange, which had its servers out of public view for almost a week in August.
Dave Parry, a professor of computer science at the University of Auckland, told Radio New Zealand that another government is probably behind the bank data breach.
“Ultimately, if you are coming from a criminal perspective, government agencies are not going to pay your ransom or anything else, so you would be more interested in coming from one level of government to government,” said Parry.