New Zealand’s Vercoe Insurance Brokers says its IT systems were recently “compromised” by cybercriminals and external experts are investigating the “full scope and nature of any malicious activity”.

Access has been restored to all systems, which are back to full operational capacity, and security is under review, it told insuranceNEWS.com.au. 

“Thankfully, it appears the impact on our ability to conduct our day-to-day work for our clients has been limited,” the company said.

“We are grateful to our external providers for working hard to get us to this point.”

Ransomware group DragonForce posted a hacking claim on March 5, saying it had exfiltrated more than 60 gigabytes of data. Vercoe immediately notified the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Financial Markets Authority.

The investigation into what information was affected is ongoing, and insurer clients and other parties have been notified.  

“Should the investigation identify that personal information relating to our broker clients has been impacted, we will be sure to notify them as appropriate,” Vercoe said.  

“We are taking this incident extremely seriously and working hard with our response team to ensure we respond appropriately and in line with best practice.”

Vercoe has offices in Matamata and Morrinsville on the North Island.