Hunt said this was not the largest data breach he had ever seen‚ but it was concerning because it listed “almost every living person” in South Africa.
“Every person that I have checked that sent me their ID number‚ I have found a record for. That is very concerning‚” he said.
The breach contains‚ among other things‚ ID numbers‚ ages‚ locations‚ marital status‚ occupations‚ estimated income‚ physical addresses and cellphone numbers.
It remains unclear what the source of the information was.
Professor Basie von Solms‚ director of the Centre for Cyber Security at the University of Johannesburg‚ said cyber criminals could use information like this to obtain credit.
“With enough personal information‚ one can do damage to a person by illegally opening credit accounts or make bookings. It is an extremely big risk. The great risk is to the individual whose data has been breached.”
Von Solms noted South Africans are not out of the woods yet‚ because Hunt and others could have made back-ups of the information.