Breach date: 2016-09-07. Added to this index: 2016-09-15. Accounts affected: about 82K. Domain: eservices.durban.gov.za.
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.
Breach data sourced from Have I Been Pwned, used under CC BY 4.0. Additional breach metadata provided by XposedOrNot. DataExposed is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.
What was exposed
Dates of birth: Your full birth date, day, month and year, collected at signup for age checks, identity verification, insurance quotes, birthday offers or government services.
Deceased date: The date a person died, held by insurers, funeral providers, genealogy sites, banks, health services and memorial or obituary platforms.
Email addresses: The email address you used to register or log in. It is the most common field in breaches because it doubles as your username on most sites.
Genders: The gender or sex recorded on your profile, usually picked from a list at signup, sometimes with a title such as Mr or Ms or a gender identity option beyond male and female.
Government issued IDs: Numbers or images of official identity documents, such as passports, national identity cards, Social Security numbers, Medicare cards, tax file numbers, residence permits and voter cards.
Names: Your first name, surname and sometimes middle name or initials, as you gave them when you signed up. It appears in almost every breach because nearly every account asks for it.
Passport numbers: The unique number printed on your passport, often stored with your full name, nationality, date of birth and expiry date by airlines, hotels, travel agents, exchanges and identity verification services.
Passwords: The secret you use to sign in, stored by the breached service either in plain text, in a scrambled form called a hash, or encrypted. How it was stored decides how quickly it can be recovered.
Phone numbers: Your mobile or landline number, collected at signup for contact, delivery updates, marketing and two-factor codes.
Physical addresses: Your residential, postal, billing or delivery address, stored by retailers, utilities, banks, government services and almost any company that sends you something.
Utility bills: Bills or account records from electricity, gas, water, internet or phone providers, often showing your name, service address, account number, usage, amount due and payment details.
What to do now
Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
Change the password on this service and every other site where you used the same password.
Turn on two-factor authentication on your email account first, because it is the reset path for everything else.
Treat calls and messages that quote real details about you as hostile until you verify them another way.
Frequently asked questions
What data was leaked in the eThekwini Municipality breach?
The eThekwini Municipality breach exposed Dates of birth, Deceased date, Email addresses, Genders, Government issued IDs, Names, Passport numbers, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Utility bills. About 82K accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the eThekwini Municipality breach?
Run the free email breach check with the address you used on that service. It will tell you whether your address appears in this dataset.
What should I do about the eThekwini Municipality breach?
Change the password on that account and everywhere you reused it, then turn on two-factor authentication. Passwords from this breach are traded and tried automatically against other sites.