This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 14, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, which revealed that several of the bank’s magnetic tapes containing backup data were lost in transit during its routine operations, has given assurance that no authentication data like PINs, passwords or credit card CVV numbers were contained in the lost tapes.

In a statement yesterday, it said its ongoing assessment showed no evidence of the information having been compromised, adding that it was working with all relevant authorities and taking all necessary measures to protect its customers. “As these are backup tapes, CIMB still has all customer information,” it said.

Further, in response to the incident, CIMB has heightened security measures across all its channels, including temporarily suspending some services via its call centre, for example requests for changes of the address, telephone number, and/or email address for banking/credit cards, third-party fund transfers or payment for customers without a T-Pin, and T-Pin creation or requests.

“We take our responsibility for our customers very seriously, and we are confident [that] the measures we have put in place will maintain the safety of customer transactions,” its group chief executive officer Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said.

“We apologise for the inconvenience that our heightened security measures may cause to our customers in the interim. Know that we are working very closely with all relevant authorities to mitigate any risk arising from this incident,” Zafrul added.

The security measures, it said, would not require any action from its customers, but the bank has recommended that customers be extra vigilant and to refer only to official CIMB channels “when in doubt”.

“Although this was an isolated incident, we have reviewed and further strengthened our security and internal processes to ensure that we remove the possibility of it recurring,” said Zafrul.

In a separate statement, Bank Negara Malaysia announced that it was aware of the incident at CIMB and said it had been assured that all necessary precautionary measures and mitigation actions had been taken to manage any possible negative impact from the loss of the tapes.

“Members of the public are advised to continue to be vigilant in safeguarding their personal information,” it added.

Shares in CIMB slid five sen or 0.81% to settle at RM6.13 yesterday, after 7.82 million shares were traded, giving the financial group a market capitalisation of RM56.83 billion.