CIPC recovers from potential security breach; hackers demand bitcoin ransom

The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), South Africa’s body responsible for business registrations and rights protection, recently revealed that it narrowly avoided a cyber security breach last week. According to the regulator, the attempted hack could have exposed the personal information of clients and staff.

Following the attempted breach, the CIPC temporarily shut down its IT systems for mandatory reparations and conducted extensive technical maintenance. The organization managed to get its website operational again by 8 a.m. SAST yesterday, after being offline since 2 p.m. on the previous Wednesday. The outage also affected its call center and self-help service center.

The CIPC acknowledged in a statement that it was not the only agency in South Africa grappling with such cyber threats and vowed to treat the matter with utmost seriousness. The commission is currently collaborating with the police and other relevant agencies, including the State Security Agency and the Information Regulator, to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice.

The CIPC also confirmed its adherence to all privacy regulations, which includes informing the relevant authorities and affected individuals.

The commission reiterated that the violation of any organization’s security is a grave criminal act and perpetrators should be treated as lawbreakers.

As for the individuals behind this incident, while their identities remain unknown, they seem to be playing a high-stakes game by demanding a ransom worth $100,000 in Bitcoin. Their threat is clear: pay the ransom or risk having the stolen information released.

At this stage, it is unclear exactly what data they may have accessed, but the potential implications are worrying. The hackers could potentially have obtained company registration details, financial records or director identification numbers.