Liechtenstein has been hit by a highly sensitive cyberattack: unknown hackers copied records on around 31,000 legal entities from the country’s beneficial ownership register. The database, designed to lift the veil on who controls companies, foundations and trusts, was disconnected from the network after the intrusion was detected.
The attackers broke into the Register of Beneficial Owners, known in the principality as VwbP, and the intrusion was discovered during the night of July 29-30. The government formed an emergency team headed by Prime Minister Brigitte Haas and Justice Minister Emanuel Schädler, while an investigation into the break-in continues.
The register was created in 2021 under Liechtenstein’s anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing rules. It was meant to bring European transparency standards for corporate ownership into the national legal system, a particularly sensitive issue for a jurisdiction that houses thousands of companies, foundations and trusts used by an international clientele.
Why the stolen ownership map is dangerous
The scale is hard to overstate: Liechtenstein has roughly 40,000 residents, and the compromised database covers about 31,000 legal vehicles. The ownership structure data is essentially a map of who is behind assets in one of Europe’s key financial centres.
Banking information was not part of the leak, the Liechtenstein government said, and no client account records were compromised. Simon Tribelhorn, director of the Liechtenstein Bankers Association, told Reuters the banking sector was not directly hit, but called the incident serious and warned against playing it down.
Ownership ties alone can still be abused. Security researchers say such records create opportunities for blackmail, corporate espionage, phishing campaigns and the creation of detailed wealth profiles, especially for wealthy individuals, politicians and international business figures.
What happens next
The authorities have yet to say who perpetrated the break-in or whether the stolen files have been used. So far there is no evidence that any data was changed or deleted, and affected individuals and companies will be notified.
The breach has become a test for Europe as more countries build central registers to fight money laundering: the more intimate the data, the more attractive it becomes to criminals. Liechtenstein, a country whose financial sector operates on trust and discretion, now has to deal with the consequences of an attack that pierced the confidentiality of its ownership register.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. amgun / Shutterstock
