hack - Shaun Dewberry

Gauteng Department of Local Government Site Hacked

News of the day is that the script kiddies have gotten hold of the admin passwords for Gauteng’s Department of Local Government content management system and decided to add some Arabic flavour. A message “Hacked by CeCeN Hack Team” now greets visitors to the previously unknown site. The message extends further with:

“Allahu Ekber! denmark israel asshole Americas – 45 thousand people will give account – Hooray Chechnya”.

I like the background music though – that was a nice touch! Visit the site here or a screengrab here if it gets switched off.

Elaborate hoax
Industry experts, however, are calling the hack “an elaborate hoax”. Some claim the “hack” is simply a carefully crafted “viral marketing campaign” to try and get the website its first visitor. South Africa, they say, with a mere 400 000 broadband subscribers, simply has not had the internet penetration that would see people visiting a bland local government website instead of getting their usual facebook fix, and so a drastic approach was developed to pump up the traffic to the government site.

Only time will tell if the approach works, or if the site will simply return to its previous anonymity.

Unofficial Standard Bank Credit Vetting

I have a problem with Standard Bank and the way they handle their Credit Card Division. Apart from their bumbling incompetence, I discovered a way to obtain all the balance details on a particular credit card. What’s more scary, the level of security is minimal.

Here’s how:
1) Dial +27 11 241 1000
2) Press ‘2’ for Balance and Payment details.
3) Key in the credit card number.
4) Press ‘1’ to confirm
5) Enter the first six digits of the cardholder’s ID number
(i.e. their date of birth – very lame security)
6) Enter the expiry date of the credit card.

All of the above information is extremely easy to socially engineer or otherwise obtain. And what is the benefit of doing this you ask? Well, You get access to the following details:

Balance outstanding for straight purchases.
Balance outstanding for budget purchases.
Available credit for straight and budget purchases.
Last payment date and amount.

Whatever made you think your credit record was private?