Hackers: why TransUnion ‘must suffer’
It’s somewhat disquieting when hackers send you your monthly phone bill before Telkom does
Hackers who gained access to credit bureau TransUnion’s SA server are putting pressure on the company to "do the right thing and meet our demands" — mainly pay them $15m (about R225m).The hacker group, which goes by the name N4ughtySecTU, tells the FM that TransUnion has no option but to pay up to protect the data. From a number of statements sent to the FM, it seems the hackers — believed to be based in Brazil — don’t want to call their actions extortion.They say they at least gave the credit bureau a week to fix its security vulnerabilities and pay up — less noble hackers wouldn’t have given TransUnion any grace period.The N4ughtySecTU hackers gained access to an SA server before March 11, and say they accessed several databases, including 28-million credit records. This week the hackers claimed they still had an entry point into TransUnion’s IT system and showed the FM lines of computer code that they said was proof.The credit bureau initially denied this, but later retracted the...
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