ZURICH, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Hackers who last week stole data from a Liechtenstein register of thousands of companies, foundations and trusts spent several hours inside the system, though it did not contain financial information, the principality’s government said on Tuesday.
The hacked register included names, nationalities and dates of birth of the beneficial owners of the legal entities, but not data on assets, revenue and dividends of the affected parties, Prime Minister Brigitte Haas told a press conference.
Liechtenstein, one of the world’s smallest and richest countries, is home to thousands of low-tax trusts, and the data hack delivered a blow to the principality’s reputation as a secure, discreet centre of international finance.
“Every financial centre has a potential risk and Liechtenstein does everything to minimise that risk,” Haas said, noting other countries had also suffered data hacks.
Investigators did not know who was behind the hack that took place during the night of July 29 to 30 but were working hard to find out, Haas said, speaking to media alongside other officials from the tiny country between Switzerland and Austria.
Fabian Schmid, head of Liechtenstein’s office on information technology, said the perpetrators spent “several hours” on the register and accessed the data individually, not in one go, before authorities detected the breach and shut down the system.
Authorities were investigating why the hackers, who accessed the data after creating a user account for the register, had managed to get inside the system for so long, said Schmid.
(Reporting by Marleen Kaesebier; Editing by Dave Graham and Sharon Singleton)
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