The central bank of New Zealand has reportedly stated that one of its data systems has been breached by an unknown hacker who probably accessed personally as well as commercially sensitive information.

According to the official statement of the Wellington-based bank, the third party file service used by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to store as well as share sensitive information had been accessed unlawfully.

Adrian Orr, Governor at Reserve Bank of New Zealand, stated that the breach has been controlled. The main functions of the bank continue to remain sound and operational.

Orr added that the bank is working together with international and domestic cybersecurity experts as well as other related authorities as part of its investigation and response to this malevolent attack.

Continuing further Orr stated that the data system has been secured and brought offline till the time the bank finishes its initial investigations. It would take some time to understand the complete implications of the breach and the bank is working together with system users whose information might have been compromised.

Meanwhile, it is not clear as to when the breach happened or if there were any sort of signals of who was accountable and in what country the file-sharing service was based mostly.

Various major organizations across New Zealand have been the target of cyber interference in the previous year, including the New Zealand Stock Exchange, which eventually had its servers knocked out of public view for almost a week back in August.

Auckland University’s computer science professor, Dave Parry, stated the Radio New Zealand that some other government was possibly behind the data breach of bank.

Parry added that essentially, if someone is thinking from a criminal perspective, the government agencies are not going to pay the hackers money or any ransom, so the attacker would be more interested perhaps coming in from a government-to-government level.

Source credit: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/11/new-zealands-central-bank-says-its-systems-have-been-hacked