Breach Intelligence

2,850

Total breached databases

eThekwini Municipality 2016

eThekwini Municipality 2016

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.
  • Data: Birthdates Death Information Email Addresses Financial Information Genders Government IDs Names Passports Passwords Phone Numbers Physical Locations
  • Imported:
  • Passwords: Plaintext

Frequently Asked Questions

A data breach is unauthorized access to data (often involving account takeover, malware, or misconfigured infrastructure). A data leak is exposure of data due to mistakes like public cloud storage, open databases, or accidental publishing. A database dump is a packaged dataset that may come from a breach, leak, scraping, or aggregation.

Change passwords for any affected accounts immediately, prioritizing email, banking, and any account that shares the same password. Enable multi-factor authentication wherever possible. Monitor your accounts for suspicious activity and consider placing a fraud alert or credit freeze if financial data was exposed.

Start with containment and verification: confirm what data was exposed, identify the entry point, rotate credentials (especially SSO, VPN, email), and enforce MFA. Then investigate affected systems, notify stakeholders as required, and harden controls to prevent recurrence. A structured incident response plan helps keep the work measurable and compliant.

Dark web monitoring helps you spot exposure signals early — before stolen data is widely reused for account takeover or targeted attacks. Monitoring complements vulnerability management by revealing when attackers already have leverage. Pair it with continuous attack surface monitoring and strong Asset Discovery to reduce blind spots.

Not always. Some datasets are old, incomplete, or derived from third parties. However, any exposure increases risk because credentials and personal data can be reused indefinitely. Treat it as a priority signal: rotate credentials, enforce MFA, review suspicious logins, and audit the systems that could have produced the data.

SynScan helps you connect the dots between attack surface exposure, vulnerabilities, and breach signals so you can prioritize remediation and reduce the chance of repeat incidents.