advertisement
Jigsaw Holdings
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

Real estate company owns up to being the source of SA’s biggest data leak

One of South Africa’s top real estate companies has owned up to being the source of the biggest data leak in the country’s history.

Times Media reports that the personal data of over 30 million South Africans emanated from Jigsaw Holdings, a property company that includes Aida‚ ERA and Realty-1.

Aida CEO Braam de Jager told Times Media the company had “absolutely no idea” how the information ended up on a public-facing web server. It was removed yesterday afternoon.

“As I am speaking to you now‚ I have called in forensic guys into my office that are busy investigating all of these things right now‚” de Jager told Times Media.

The data dump contained the details of over 30 million South Africans, including ID numbers, phone numbers, estimated incomes, marital statuses and physical addresses. President Jacob Zuma, finance minister Malusi Gigaba and police minister Fikile Mbalula are among those affected.

News of the leak came to light when security expert Troy Hunt, who runs the website haveibeenpwned.com revealed on his Twitter account that he’d been sent the details by an anonymous source. Hunt says 2.2 million email addresses were contained in the dump, but that the personal data of over 30 million South Africans was also included.

htxt.africa contacted Hunt and we’ll be publishing our interview with him about the leak later today. In the meantime, if you want to know if you’re one of the many South Africans affected by this leak (and odds are, you probably are) head over to Hunt’s site and check your status.

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement