TransUnion

History

2022: Customer data theft, hackers demand $15 million ransom

In mid-March 2022, hackers demanded a $15 million ransom for the data of 54 million customers stolen from the server of the TransUnion credit bureau in South Africa. The company claims that cybercriminals N4ughtySec Group, who took responsibility for the attack, gained access to confidential data using compromised credentials of one of the company's customers. TransUnion noted that she used a weak password in one of the parts of her network.

Hackers stole the data of 54 million customers of the credit bureau TransUnion and demand a ransom of $15 million

We're N4ughtySec Group hackers. We have been hacking TransUnion since 2012, "the alleged criminals said. - We have more than 4 TB of information from their customers. The information includes more than 200 corporate companies. We contacted TransUnion and they received our ransom claims. They were warned on Friday, March 11, 2022. "

TransUnion states that the data disclosed "may include personal information such as phone numbers, email addresses, identification numbers, physical addresses, and some credit ratings."

As a precaution, the credit bureau temporarily shut down part of its infrastructure and brought in external experts to help investigate the incident.

According to ITWeb, hackers N4aughtysecTU request bitcoins worth about 223 million South African rand, or about $15 million for returning stolen files.

We believe that the incident affected an isolated server that stores a limited amount of data from our South African business, the TransUnion said. "We work with law enforcement agencies and regulators.

TransUnion said it does not plan to pay the ransom, and customers affected by the incident will be offered a free annual subscription to the personal data protection system TrueIdentity managed by TransUnion.^[1]

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