Five massive data breaches affecting South Africans
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Johannesburg- Liberty Holdings customers received SMSs on Saturday alerting them that personal information related to their insurance policies could have been stolen by an external party.
The Information Regulator, which has asked for information about the Liberty breach, is clearly concerned about the increasing number of cyber attacks affecting personal data in South Africa.
"Without a fully functional Information Regulator, these breaches will continue to occur without sanctions provided for in the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)," said chairperson Advocate Pansy Tlakula.
Tlakula urged "the powers that be to assist it in fast tracking its operationalisation".
READ: Regulator seeks finer details of Liberty data breach
According to corporate law firm Michalsons, certain limited sections of POPIA have already been implemented. However, the bulk of the legislation will only commence at a later date, to be proclaimed by the president. As there is a one-year grace period, the POPIA deadline might only be set for the end of 2019 or in 2020.
In the meantime, South Africans are coming under heightened attack from cyber criminals and hackers.
Andrew Chester, MD of Ukuvuma Security, told Fin24 that affected clients or users should immediately alert their banks and cellphone provider. They should also undertake a credit check as well as a Google search to determine whether their personal information is in the public domain.
Liberty email hack
In SMSs to clients on Saturday, financial services company Liberty informed them that its email repository had been breached by a third party trying to demand a "ransom" in exchange for the data.
Liberty has not revealed much about the breach, citing a police investigation. CEO David Munro confirmed that Liberty's insurance clients were the only ones affected, and that none of its other business had been compromised.
The company said none of its clients have been impacted financially, and that individuals will be personally advised if their information has been affected.
READ: Liberty customers urged to change all banking passwords amid inside-job rumours
ViewFines licence details
In May the Hawks, the State Security Agency and the Information Regulator said they would probe the breach of personal records of 943 000 South African drivers, allegedly from online traffic fine website ViewFines.
The information reportedly contained the names, identity numbers and email addresses of South African drivers stored on the ViewFines website in plaintext.
The ViewFines website is owned by Aggregated Payment Systems. News24 reported that its operations manager confirmed the company was "implementing security measures immediately" to improve the website after being informed of the breach.
The source of the data was located by Troy Hunt, an Australian security researcher and creator of the free service Have I Been Pwned, which checks whether an individual's information has been compromised.
Facebook scandal
While Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to face angry lawmakers in the US and European Union, it was reported that the data breach involving the UK political consultancy affected almost 60 000 South African users.
READ: Facebook scandal not an isolated case, UK privacy chief warns
In May, the Information Commissioner's Office of the United Kingdom (which regulates Facebook outside the US and Canada) advised the Information Regulator of South Africa that over 87 million people had been affected worldwide.
However, no evidence could be found of South Africans having been targeted, as the majority of users involved were in the US.
Master Deed's data breach "biggest" digital security threat in SA
Hunt was once again instrumental in revealing what was known as the "biggest" data breach in South African history, together with iAfrikan CEO Tefo Mohapi in October 2017.
Over 60 million South Africans' personal data, from ID numbers to company directorships, was believed to have been affected.
The information was traced to Jigsaw Holdings, a holding company for several real estate firms including Realty1, ERA and Aida. The information reportedly came from credit bureau agencies, and was used to vet potential clients.
The information trove was found not to have been hacked, as it was stored in an easily accessible manner on an open web server.
Ster-Kinekor's database compromised
Movie theatre chain Ster-Kinekor was responsible for up to 7 million South Africans falling victim to a data leak in March 2017.
Fin24 reported that Durban developer Matt Cavanagh announced he had discovered a flaw in Ster-Kinekor's booking website, and that he had reported it to the company.
READ: Ster-Kinekor website flaw puts 7 million users' data at risk
There were between 6 and 7 million users in the database. Of those, 1.6 million people had email addresses linked to them on the movie theatre chain's database.
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