CIPC confirmed to ITWeb this morning that maintenance following the cyber attack has been completed.
The Corporation and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) has completed maintenance of core IT systems that suffered a cyber attack.
The organization announced yesterday that it was temporarily suspending its IT systems after experiencing a cyber breach.
Last week, CIPC confirmed an “attempted security breach” and the disclosure of personal information of customers and CIPC employees.
CIPC is an agency of the South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. Responsible for the registration and maintenance of companies, cooperatives, and intellectual property rights (trademarks, patents, designs, copyrights).
In a notice posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) yesterday, CIPC said: “Please note that there is an emergency system maintenance scheduled from 14:00 today, 6 March 2024, until 7:00 tomorrow morning. As a result, all core IT systems will be unavailable during the maintenance period. This will no longer be possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Affected services include call centers, websites, and self-help service centers.
The organization confirmed to ITWeb this morning that the maintenance has been completed. CIPC's website became inaccessible around 7 a.m., but was restored by 8 a.m.
In an update yesterday, CIPC said: “Many of you may have read in the media that CIPC has suffered a security breach. Without diminishing the seriousness of such incidents, CIPC is not the only organization to have suffered such a breach and is one of the It is important to mention that there has been a significant increase in attacks. Within our jurisdiction, we are being targeted.”
The report notes that breaching the security infrastructure of any organization, agency or institution is a criminal act and perpetrators should be portrayed as criminals.
“Given the criminal nature of this illegal and egregious violation of CIPC’s security systems and protocols, we will take the necessary steps to ensure that offenders are held accountable for the crimes they commit.”
As soon as the breach became known, CIPC notified the Information Regulator, the South African Police Service and the National Security Agency of the security breach and proceeded to comply with all requirements of Section 4 of the Privacy Act 2013. He said he would issue a media statement to that effect.
“All reasonable steps are taken to ensure that CIPC's systems and platforms are protected from illegal and/or unauthorized access and abuse and remain available for trading to our clients.
“As always, we will continue to effectively transact with and serve our customers in all areas of our core mission. CIPC remains aware of potential attacks on our databases and We have made significant investments over the years in the best technology to protect the data held in our registries, despite our legal obligations to disclose them.”