SA’s largest data breach & how you can protect your data
It turns out SA’s largest recorded data breach was traced to a Web server registered to a real estate company based in Pretoria, Jigsaw Holdings. They are a holding company for several real estate franchises including Realty1, ERA and Aida. Apparently, this website had exceptionally lax security and contained a database of 75 million records, including the records of 60 million SA citizens.
It seems that hacking wasn’t required to get access to these records as the information was easily accessible on an open Web server. The same credentials were used everywhere and allowed full administrator access across all the databases on the server. All personal data was contained in a single database in clear text. It indicates an overall lack of even the most basic security awareness.
Jigsaw Holdings missed the mark on so many levels, information governance and security was never considered. Read more