In a recent cyber threat, hackers have threatened to release all of South Africa's private financial data unless TransUnion and Experian, the two biggest consumer credit reporting companies in the country, agree to pay ransom of R1.1 billion.
The companies - TransUnion and Experian - were the ones that were hit by the cybercrime attack.
According to Times Live, the hackers, the Brazil-based N4ughtySecTU Group, who had previously breached TransUnion's security and firewalls, claimed to have successfully evaded the safeguards of the company once again, following which they stole the data.
Apparently, the hackers have demanded $30m from TransUnion and $30m from Experian.
While acknowledging the demands, TransUnion and Experian refuted the group's allegations of an ongoing hack on their systems.
Not the First Attempt to Hack Previously, in March 2022, N4ughtysecTU claimed responsibility for targeting TransUnion in their ransomware campaign.
TransUnion South Africa later confirmed the hack, confirming that at least 3 million individuals were affected.
Apparently, the threat actors gained access to the personal data of over 54 million people, which included information about their dates of birth, ID numbers, gender, marital status, and other sensitive facts.
Experian also suffered a data breach in August 2020, reported by the South African Banking Risk Centre.
The data breach compromised the personal information of around 24 million individuals and several business entities to a fraudster.
Karabo Phungula, an Experian data fraudster, was given a 15-year prison sentence in March by the Specialized Commercial Crimes Court for obtaining the dataset under false pretence.
This Cyber News was published on www.cysecurity.news. Publication date: Thu, 28 Dec 2023 15:13:04 +0000