eThekwini Municipality data breach: 81K accounts exposed
Severity: high · Patch status: no-fix-needed · Since 2016-09-15
In September 2016, the new eThekwini eServices website in South Africa was launched with a number of security holes that lead to the leak of over 98k residents' personal information and utility bills across 82k unique email addresses. Emails were sent prior to launch containing passwords in plain text and the site allowed anyone to download utility bills without sufficient authentication. Various methods of customer data enumeration was possible and phishing attacks began appearing the day after launch. Exposed data: dates of birth, deceased date, email addresses, genders, government issued ids, names, passport numbers, passwords, phone numbers, physical addresses, utility bills. The breach dates from Sep 7, 2016; Have I Been Pwned loaded it on Sep 15, 2016.
What to do
- If you had a eThekwini Municipality account, change its password and the password of any other account that reused it.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication wherever it is offered.
- Check whether your addresses are in this breach at https://haveibeenpwned.com.
- Expect targeted phishing that quotes the leaked details; verify any unexpected contact out of band.
Sources
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