BLACKMAIL ATTEMPT
Liberty regains control after cyberattack
The life insurance industry is on high alert after the cyberattack and blackmail attempt on insurer Liberty. The firm had regained control of its IT systems by Sunday. The insurance industry holds sensitive data on millions of clients, including their banking details and medical reports. Life offices often operate with many different computer systems. Liberty dispatched a large team of IT and security specialists to investigate the breach of its IT infrastructure on Thursday. Its CEO, David Munro, said on Sunday criminals had hacked into an e-mail server and removed some recent messages, and possibly some attachments. There was no evidence that client data files had been taken, Munro said. The hacking affected the core Liberty insurance business and did not spread to the group’s asset manager Stanlib or to its businesses outside SA. Munro said he did not believe any Liberty customers would suffer from financial loss because of the cyberattack. He would not confirm or deny if there h...
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