Authorities in the European financial centre continue to act in the wake of a cybersecurity attack.
Authorities in Liechtenstein are reviewing other systems and
taking them temporarily offline as the probe widens into a
hacking attack that affected 31,000 legal entities on a
beneficial ownership register, as reported last week.
In parallel, law enforcement in the European principality have
handed in an initial report to public prosecutors and applied to
start enquiries against those who may have carried out the
attack.
“We understand the interest in the contents of the register. The
information is subject to confidentiality, and the government
therefore cannot provide any information on the data affected,”
Prime Minister Brigitte Haas said in a 6 August statement.
The government said that on 5 August, a newly-formed crisis unit
decided to take more systems offline. It had already taken four
state systems offline as a precautionary move.
In line with GDPR regulations, legal entities have been informed
to tell beneficial owners of the attack, the statement said.
The episode shows that government-run registers, databases
and other information sources are vulnerable to attacks. This
raises questions on whether the drive for transparency
on beneficial ownership data can clash with security of that
information. (See an
analysis.)
The Crime Investigation Division of the National Police in
Liechtenstein has already submitted a first investigation report
to the Liechtenstein Office of the Public Prosecutor. The Office
of the Public Prosecutor has applied to the Liechtenstein Court
of Justice for preliminary inquiries against unknown perpetrators
on suspicion of illegal access to a computer system, a 6 August
statement from the government said.
“The National Cyber Security Unit is in contact with the
operators of critical infrastructures in order to assess the
situation on an ongoing basis. The National Cyber Security Unit”s
inquiries to date give no indication that critical
infrastructures are affected. Meanwhile, the prosecution
authorities’ investigations to find the perpetrators are
proceeding urgently,” the government said.
The attack is a blow to Liechtenstein, a jurisdiction
that received a “Largely Compliant” rating from the OECD in
a report in June this year.
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