Just in time for Black Friday, hackers are reported to have made off with a substantial amount of South African financial information. In return for keeping that information under lock and key, Brazilian hacker group N4ughtySec is demanding $60 million.
Which, in a country that uses the dollar as currency, might seem almost reasonable. But the sum demanded of Experian and TransUnion, of $30 million apiece, works out to well over a billion rand. It’s R1.129 billion, as a matter of fact—hardly pocket change.
Hacker collection
You’d think that financial institutions like TransUnion and Experian might prefer to keep something like this under wraps until it is resolved. You’d be right but the group contacted a reporter at TimesLive, presenting him with some of his own personal info as proof of their claims. But that seems to be the only proof that has been provided so far.
Both TransUnion and Experian reckon that the hacker group might be taking a chance. TransUnion said it “…is aware of a financial demand from a threat actor asserting they have accessed TransUnion South Africa’s data. While we are continuing to monitor closely, we have found no evidence that our systems have been inappropriately accessed or that any data has been exfiltrated. We’ve likewise seen no change to our operations and systems in South Africa related in any way to this claim.”
Likewise, Experian said, “We have investigated reports that Experian data in South Africa has been illegally obtained and have found these claims to be baseless. There is no evidence that our systems or data have been compromised in any way nor [have] the systems or data of any of our clients. We take threats of this nature seriously and will continue to review our systems for security. Protecting our customers and data is our top priority.”
The responses seem rather definitive but the N4ughtySec hacker group is running quite a confident bluff if that’s the case. They claim to be “..currently inside your and your clients’ infrastructure and will expose all data and system files in the next 24 hours should our ransom demands not be met in 24 hours.”
The same group demanded a substantial sum of money from TransUnion in 2022 for a similar theft. They were ultimately not paid.