The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) has suffered a cyber security breach related to its use of the Accellion file sharing software which was recently at the centre of a similar incident at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

In a statement, Asic says that it became aware on 15 January of unauthorised access to a server which contained documents associated with recent Australian credit licence applications.

"This incident is related to Accellion software used by Asic to transfer files and attachments," says the securities watchdog.

There appears to be "some risk" that "limited information" may have been viewed, but so far there is no evidence that any Australian credit licence application forms or any attachments were opened or downloaded.

Asic has disabled access to the server and is working on alternative ways for submitting credit application attachments. Meanwhile, relevant agencies and those impacted have been notified.

Earlier this month, New Zealand's central bank revealed it had suffered a similar "significant" Accellion-related breach.