medium severity September 07, 2016 · 1 min read

eThekwini Municipality Data Breach (2016)

If you are a resident of eThekwini Municipality, here’s what’s now in circulation.

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.

eThekwini Municipality Data Breach (2016)

What the free scan actually returns

Sample resultyou@email.comIllustrative — not a real person

Found on people-search siteswe remove these

These listings are live, public, and legal to remove — and removing them is what we do.

value redacted in this sampleage, relatives, address historySpokeo

value redacted in this samplephone, household, property recordsBeenVerified

value redacted in this sample582 companies checked

Found in breach recordsverifiedreported — unverified

Each record is labeled: confirmed breach data, or an attacker’s claim no one has verified.

verifiedvalue redacted in this samplepassword + phone · 2024telecom breach

unverifiedvalue redacted in this sampleclaimed in ransomware listing · 2026leak-site claim

Leaked data cannot be deleted from the internet — anyone claiming otherwise is lying. Broker listings can be removed. We do the second, and show you exactly what to fix from the first.

What to do now

Steps that match what this notice says was exposed

Every step below is free and you do it yourself, and none of it depends on eThekwini Municipality.

Report the passport number. A compromised passport number can be reported to the US State Department, which will flag it. Replacing it is neither quick nor free, so report it before you need to travel.

One more, whatever was exposed: a breach notice is a favourite disguise for a phishing email. If a message about this arrives, do not use its links — go to the company’s site yourself, or call the number on your statement.

Were you a eThekwini Municipality customer?

eThekwini Municipality is one listing. Your email is probably in others.

82K accounts were exposed here. Check whether yours is one — and find every other leak tied to the same address, in about 15 seconds. No account, no card.

Report details & sourcing

Severity Medium

Disclosed September 07, 2016

Last reviewed July 22, 2026

Affected 82K

Data exposed Dates of birthDeceased dateEmail addressesGendersGovernment issued IDsNamesPassport numbersPasswords +3 more

By GalaxyWarden Threat Research · Editorial & sourcing standards

Editorial & sourcing policy

GalaxyWarden is a breach-monitoring service and news aggregator. We do not exfiltrate, host, purchase, or redistribute stolen data. Breach information is compiled from publicly accessible sources and threat-intelligence platforms, and is reported as claims attributed to their source. We promptly correct or remove material shown to be inaccurate — see our content & takedown policy or write to support@galaxywarden.com.

Sources: Have I Been Pwned

Related breaches

critical January 29, 2026

eThekwini Municipality Data Breach (2016)

Found on people-search siteswe remove these

Found in breach recordsverifiedreported — unverified

Steps that match what this notice says was exposed

Report details & sourcing

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