Companies and intellectual property Commission (CIPC) formerly known as Cipro head offices in Pretoria. Picture:Sizwe Ndingane
In light of a cyber hack at the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), where confidential company information was leaked, the state entity has announced that its systems and services will be unavailable due to “planned maintenance” until Monday.
The CIPC which is an agency of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, is the registrar and the regulator of companies, co-operatives and intellectual property rights.
The planned maintenance comes after the CIPC said in a statement that the introduction of the new customer verification process caused delays and left people feeling frustrated especially with the verification of personal information with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).
According to the CIPC, the customer verification process of confirming personal information with DHA and the security question was introduced to protect the the profile information of customers.
The customer verification process announced around the same time that the CIPC was hacked and the confidential information of companies was leaked.
Richard Frost, head of Consulting at Aramata said that the hack of CIPC left companies vulnerable and the organisation holds the registration details of companies, co-operatives and intellectual property rights within a vast database that comprises of ID numbers, addresses, contact information and more.
Frost said: “Companies, whether they are large enterprises or solopreneurs, need to stay close to TransUnion and Experian right now. You need to see who is opening up accounts in your name.”
“For larger organisations, it’s worth taking a leaf out of the financial institution playbook and creating digitally stamped documents to prove that any request or purchase is coming from a legitimate company.”
Frost urged companies to stay close to the credit bureaus so you can quickly catch any unusual activity.
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