Orange Rwanda Customer Data Allegedly Leaked in Cyberattack
A ransomware group known as HawkSec has claimed responsibility for a data breach affecting Orange Rwanda, one of Africa’s largest telecommunications providers. The attackers allege they stole over 1 million customer records, including full names, national ID numbers, and other personally identifiable information (PII). A sample of the leaked data, reviewed by Cybernews researchers, confirmed the presence of sensitive customer details, raising concerns over potential identity theft, fraud, and social engineering attacks.
The breach could enable SIM swapping, where attackers hijack a victim’s phone number to bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA) and gain access to accounts. HawkSec, the same group behind a previous Discord data leak, posted the stolen information on a popular cybercrime forum but did not provide verifiable samples for the alleged Discord breach.
Orange, a French multinational telecom giant, has faced repeated cyber threats in recent years. In 2023, the company reported a cyberattack on an IT system but stated that no customer data was compromised. This latest incident follows a pattern of ransomware groups targeting major corporations and their supply chains Luxshare, an Apple supplier, was also recently threatened with data leaks involving Apple, Nvidia, and LG files.
While Orange has not yet confirmed the breach, the exposed data poses significant risks to affected customers, including account takeovers, phishing scams, and doxxing. The full extent of the leak remains under investigation.
Source: https://cybernews.com/security/orange-rwanda-data-breach-claims/
Orange RDC cybersecurity rating report: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/orange-rdc
"id": "ORA1768963858",
"linkid": "orange-rdc",
"type": "Ransomware",
"date": "6/2023",
"severity": "100",
"impact": "4",
"explanation": "Attack with significant impact with customers data leaks"{'affected_entities': [{'customers_affected': 'Over 1 million',
'industry': 'Telecommunications',
'location': 'Rwanda',
'name': 'Orange Rwanda',
'size': 'Large',
'type': 'Telecommunications Provider'}],
'data_breach': {'data_exfiltration': 'Yes',
'number_of_records_exposed': 'Over 1 million',
'personally_identifiable_information': 'Yes',
'sensitivity_of_data': 'High',
'type_of_data_compromised': ['Full names',
'National ID numbers',
'Personally Identifiable '
'Information (PII)']},
'description': 'A ransomware group known as HawkSec has claimed '
'responsibility for a data breach affecting Orange Rwanda, one '
'of Africa’s largest telecommunications providers. The '
'attackers allege they stole over 1 million customer records, '
'including full names, national ID numbers, and other '
'personally identifiable information (PII). A sample of the '
'leaked data, reviewed by Cybernews researchers, confirmed the '
'presence of sensitive customer details, raising concerns over '
'potential identity theft, fraud, and social engineering '
'attacks. The breach could enable SIM swapping, where '
'attackers hijack a victim’s phone number to bypass '
'multi-factor authentication (MFA) and gain access to '
'accounts.',
'impact': {'brand_reputation_impact': 'Significant',
'data_compromised': 'Over 1 million customer records',
'identity_theft_risk': 'High'},
'investigation_status': 'Under investigation',
'motivation': 'Financial gain, Data exfiltration',
'ransomware': {'data_exfiltration': 'Yes'},
'references': [{'source': 'Cybernews'}],
'threat_actor': 'HawkSec',
'title': 'Orange Rwanda Customer Data Allegedly Leaked in Cyberattack',
'type': 'Data Breach, Ransomware'}