Standard Bank hit with data breach at Liberty
Standard Bank-owned Liberty was hit by a data breach, but customers have been informed that their policies and investments remain secure.
Yuresh Maharaj, CEO of Insurance and Asset Management at Standard Bank, said that Liberty saw unauthorised third-party access to select data systems.
Maharaj said that its services remain unaffected, fully operational and available to all clients, advisers and employees. Liberty launched a full investigation into the incident, with expert support.
“We operate within a robust regulatory framework and fully comply with all applicable obligations,” the CEO noted.
Liberty sent notifications to all affected clients via SMS, stating that it regrets any concern caused.
“Liberty recently detected unauthorised access to your personal information. Your policies and investments remain secure, and our services are running normally,” it said in a note to clients.
Standard Bank, which is South Africa’s largest bank by assets under management, took full control of Liberty four years ago.
The bank previously held a 53.6% stake in Liberty before launching a bid to acquire the remaining shares, which went through in 2022.
Acquiring full control of Liberty was aimed at fully integrating the bank’s insurance and asset management divisions, which would create a more efficient entity.
Unfortunately, Liberty’s latest data breach joins a growing list of technological problems that have hit the Big Four bank.
In 2022, the bank experienced severe IT system outages across its operations for 2 months. This led to the resignation of its then chief engineering officer, Alpheus Mangale, with immediate effect.
The bank’s IT struggles also occurred late last year, when an outage hit where customers from accessing its online and mobile banking channels’ full functionality.
The challenges were due to an issue reported by software provider Sage, which identified an issue with the bank feeds it receives from Standard Bank in South Africa.
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