What you need to know about South Africa's largest-ever data leak
South Africa's largest data leak is a dream for someone who trades in identity theft because they not only have your ID number and contact details but your income information too.
South Africa suffered its largest data breach as millions of personal records of anyone, dead or alive, with a South African ID number (13 digit national identity number issued by the government) have been leaked on the internet. This was first revealed by security consultant and researcher, Troy Hunt, on 17 October 2017.
Hunt is also the founder of have i been pwned?, an online service that allows you to check if you have an account, e-mail address, or username, that has been compromised in any data breach across the world.
"I typically receive many files relating to data breaches daily but what struck me about this one was that it was 27 GB in size," explained Hunt to iAfrikan.com on a call.
The data, sent to Hunt in a file titled masterdeeds.sql, contains information ranging from ID number, marital status, income, company directorships held (and previously held), employment details as well as property ownership information. What is important to note is that this is for both deceased and alive people in South Africa.
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