One of the world's largest primary producers of platinum, Sibanye-Stillwater, announced on Thursday that it was a victim of a cyber security attack.
In a JSE SENS announcement, the group said it advised stakeholders that it has experienced a cyber-attack that is affecting its IT systems globally.
“As soon as the Company became aware of the incident, immediate containment measures were implemented in line with our Incident Response plan, to proactively isolate IT systems and safeguard data. While the investigation into the incident is ongoing, there has been limited disruption to the Group's operations globally,” the group further stated.
Sibanye-Stillwater said it is taking this incident seriously and is committed to addressing the cyber-attack.
“Our efforts remain focused on working towards the full remediation of the effects of this attack. We are voluntarily reporting this incident to the appropriate regulators and will provide further updates as necessary,” the platinum giant further stated.
Earlier this month, the company announced that it laid off 11 500 employees from its southern Africa operations in the past one-and-a-half years.
This comes as 422 more workers currently employed at the company’s Beatrix 1 gold shaft could also be retrenched should the mine fail to turn into profitability.
With the Beatrix 4 shaft, Kloof 2 plant, Kloof 4 shaft, Simunye shaft and 4 Belt reaching end of life, in addition to the restructuring of loss-making shafts: the platinum group metals (PGM) shafts at Siphumelele, Rustenburg, and Rowland at Marikana since the beginning of last year, the company’s employee numbers have reduced drastically.
Together with the right-sizing of Sibanye-Stillwater’s regional head office services, the total number of employees and contractors in the southern Africa region had reduced from 81 500 at the end of 2022 to about 70 000 currently.
This constitutes a workforce reduction of about 14% for the region.
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