JOHANNESBURG – Stefanutti Stocks Holdings uncovered a cyberattack on its IT systems in the early hours of Monday, August 31, the company said in a communique to stakeholders on Tuesday.
The construction engineering company that is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) said external IT forensic experts had been engaged to work with Stefanutti Stocks’ experts to investigate the incident.
“As a result, all IT systems have been shut down in order to remediate. This will cause a temporary disruption to certain central administrative functions. Notwithstanding this, site operations will continue unaffected.
“Stefanutti Stocks reassures its stakeholders that it takes any threat to its IT systems extremely seriously and that the incident is being fully investigated,” the company said.
Stefanutti Stocks said it would report the attack to the relevant enforcement agencies and any material developments would be communicated. The company did not reveal any costs associated with the cyberattack.
According to a report released last month by multinational technology company IBM, the total cost of a data breach to an organisation is R40.2 million per breach on average.
Based on in-depth analysis of data breaches experienced by South African organisations, the study found that malicious attacks on customer, employee and corporate data were most prevalent – accounting for 48 percent of incidents – and proving to be the costliest cause of breaches to businesses.
Consumer credit reporting company Experian South Africa, which was also recently hit by a data breach, said it was actively pursuing both criminal and civil charges against the perpetrator who walked off with records of millions of South Africans after impersonating one of the company’s clients.
Experian said it was continuing to investigate an isolated incident in South Africa involving a fraudulent data inquiry.
Stefanutti closed 7.14 percent lower at 26c on the JSE on Tuesday.
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