WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said on Sunday that it was responding urgently to a breach of one of its data systems.
An outsourced file-sharing service used by the central bank to share and store some confidential information has been accessed illegally, the bank said in a statement.
RBNZ Governor Adrian Orr said the breach was contained, but added that it would take time to understand all the implications of the breach.
“The nature and extent of the information that was potentially accessed is still being determined, but it may include some confidential business and personal information,” said Orr in a statement.
In August, the New Zealand stock exchange operator was hit by cyber attacks. InPhySec, an independent cyber security company charged with reviewing cyber attacks, said the volume, sophistication and persistence of the attacks is unprecedented in New Zealand.
In a November 2019 financial stability report, RBNZ warned that the frequency and severity of cybersecurity incidents was increasing in New Zealand.
In February last year, the bank said in a report that the expected cost of cyber incidents for the banking and insurance industry was between NZD 80 million ($ 58 million) and NZD 140 million per year.
“More extreme events are unlikely, but they are still plausible,” said the bank in that report.
($ 1 = 1.3808 New Zealand dollars)
Reporting by Praveen Menon in Wellington and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; William Mallard edition