International credit bureau TransUnion says that hackers managed to breach a server operated by its South African division, and gained access to the personal information of individuals.
According to an FAQ published by TransUnion South Africa, the cybercriminals gained access to the sensitive data by using the compromised credentials of one of the company’s clients.
The firm says that the exposed data “may include personal information, such as telephone numbers, email addresses, identity numbers, physical addresses, and some credit scores.”
As a precaution, TransUnion South Africa took some of its infrastructure offline temporarily while it investigated what had gone wrong.
A Brazilian hacking group calling itself N4aughtysecTU has claimed responsibility for the data breach, and has told the press that it stole 4TB of data, containing the records of 54 million customers.
Embarrassingly, the hackers claim that the account they compromised to gain access to data on TransUnion’s server was protected with a password of “password”.
N4aughtysecTU sent an extortion demand to TransUnion South Africa that requests R223 million (approximately US $15 million) in cryptocurrency in exchange for not releasing the stolen data.
The hackers have also threatened to access TransUnion’s clients with financial demands.
TransUnion South Africa says it will not pay the ransom, and that it has brought in cybersecurity experts to assist in its response to the incident.
In addition, TransUnion has attempted to debunk N4aughtysecTU’s claims that 54 million records have been exposed, claiming that those records relate to a 2017 data incident not involving TransUnion.
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