A BEREA woman has reported a case to the police which is linked to the hacking of the eThekwini Municipality e-Services site this week.
According to the woman or asked not to be identified, she received an email from e-Services regarding new billing information which she said contained her gmail address, password and other details. The resident said she was prompted to click on a link where she had to upload a copy of her identity document.
“It all looked legit to me as all my details were included and it was from the municipality. As it had to do with the billing, I didn’t suspect anything. I did feel it was strange that I had to upload my ID, but I did it,” she said.
The woman said she was then told by a colleague at work that the e-Services website had been hacked and that a notification had been sent out at 10pm on Thursday about it. She said she was very concerned as the email contained all her details, and that all credentials were there for the hackers to see. She felt she needed to report the incident to the police.
“I contacted the municipality and was told the site had been closed because it had been hacked and the woman I spoke to at the municipality said she had also received the email, however it had not asked for her ID. She said she would investigate this,” she said.
The municipality issued a statement to say it was investigating claims that information was being shared relating to customers’ accounts and as a precautionary measure, the municipality had taken the site offline in order to prevent any unauthorised access to client data. The site will be back online on Monday, 12 September, and in the meantime e-Services users can contact the revenue call centre on 031 324 5000.
The municipality said e-Services users were asked not to panic because the City had acted proactively to protect their private information.
