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 yesterday, says a Business Day report. The insurance industry holds sensitive data on millions of clients, including their banking details and medical reports.

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 yesterday 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 had been inside help in the cyberattack, as a criminal investigation was under way. Sanlam CEO Ian Kirk, one of Liberty’s largest competitors, said his IT security team was also working around the clock to prevent a similar incident at their data centres.

Liberty clients woke up on yesterday morning to read e-mails and SMSes from the company, explaining that it had been subject to ‘unauthorised access’ of its IT infrastructure. The firm’s head of public affairs, Sydney Mbhele, confirmed that an external party claimed to have seized data, alerted the group to potential vulnerabilities in its IT systems and demanded payment. Munro said no concessions had been made to the criminals and Liberty would not meet their ransom demands.

Full Business Day report