CTOS Expected To Incur Higher Costs In FY2027 After Cyberattack - Kenanga IB

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- Credit reporting agency CTOS Digital Bhd (CTOS) is expected to incur additional capital expenditure and operating expenditure under its 12-month post-incident programme following a cyberattack that penetrated its cloud environment, said Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd (Kenanga IB).

In a note today, the investment bank said the mitigation plan also includes information technology (IT) infrastructure upgrades, achieving risk management in technology (RMiT) maturity and compliance by 2027, and strengthening its data lake, data security, data quality and governance frameworks.

“Spending estimates are still being prepared and are expected to be disclosed at the upcoming quarterly results briefing.

“CTOS’ financial year 2027 (FY2027) budget, due to be finalised by end-2026, will also factor in incremental costs and any customer attrition,” it said.

Kenanga IB also remains broadly neutral on CTOS’ near-term outlook, noting that the management’s target to restore Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS) access by next week implies an outage of four to five weeks.

“This is in line with its guided RM12 million FY2026 profit after tax and minority interest (PATAMI) impact and shorter than our assumption of services remaining offline until end-Dec 2026,” it said.

Overall, the investment bank is keeping its forecast for CTOS unchanged, given the risk of further delays should additional requirements arise, potential margin pressure from customer compensation and retention efforts, and yet-to-be-quantified FY2027 cybersecurity spending.

“While no customer attrition has been reported so far, the risk will become clearer only after services resume,” it added.

Therefore, Kenanga IB is maintaining its ‘market perform’ call on CTOS, with a target price of 48 sen.

-- BERNAMA