eThekwini Municipality Data Breach

What happened?

In September 2016, the new eThekwini eServices website in South Africa was launched with a number of security holes that lead to the leak of over 98k residents' personal information and utility bills across 82k unique email addresses. Emails were sent prior to launch containing passwords in plain text and the site allowed anyone to download utility bills without sufficient authentication. Various methods of customer data enumeration was possible and phishing attacks began appearing the day after launch.

When did it happen?

The breach date in the public record is September 7, 2016. The record was added to the catalogue on September 15, 2016 and last updated there on September 15, 2016.

What information was reported as exposed?

• Dates of birth
• Deceased date
• Email addresses
• Genders
• Government issued IDs
• Names
• Passport numbers
• Passwords
• Phone numbers
• Physical addresses
• Utility bills

These are incident-level categories. The record does not prove that every category was exposed for every affected person.

Who may be affected?

This record may be relevant to people who had an account or other relationship with eThekwini Municipality or used eservices.durban.gov.za around September 7, 2016. A catalogue entry does not establish that every customer was affected or that every listed data category applied to each person. Compare the record with an official notice addressed to you.

What should you do?

Choose actions that match the information involved. If you find signs that someone is using your identity, the Federal Trade Commission provides a personal recovery plan at IdentityTheft.gov.