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Master Deeds

Have I Been PwnedConfirmed breachAdded October 18, 2017Occurred March 14, 20172,257,930 accountsAll Master Deeds breaches →
What was exposed
Dates of birthDeceased statusesEmail addressesEmployersEthnicitiesGendersGovernment issued IDsHome ownership statusesJob titlesNamesNationalitiesPhone numbersPhysical addresses
What to do if you were affected
Details
In March 2017, a 27GB database backup file named "Master Deeds" was sent to HIBP by a supporter of the project. Upon detailed analysis later that year, the file was found to contain the personal data of tens of millions of living and deceased South African residents. The data included extensive personal attributes such as names, addresses, ethnicities, genders, birth dates, government issued personal identification numbers and 2.2 million email addresses. At the time of publishing, it's alleged the data was sourced from Dracore Data Sciences (Dracore is yet to publicly confirm or deny the data was sourced from their systems). On 18 October 2017, the file was found to have been published to a publicly accessible web server where it was located at the root of an IP address with directory listing enabled. The file was dated 8 April 2015.
Frequently asked questions

What is the Master Deeds data breach?

In March 2017, a 27GB database backup file named "Master Deeds" was sent to HIBP by a supporter of the project. Upon detailed analysis later that year, the file was found to contain the personal data of tens of millions of living and deceased South African...

When did the data breach happen?

This data breach occurred around March 2017.

How many accounts were affected?

Around 2,257,930 accounts were affected.

What information was exposed?

Exposed data included Dates of birth, Deceased statuses, Email addresses, Employers, Ethnicities, Genders, Government issued IDs and Home ownership statuses.

What should I do if I was affected?

Place a fraud alert or credit freeze with the major credit bureaus to block new accounts opened in your name. Expect more phishing and spam at this address. Treat messages that reference this company with extra caution. Watch for text-message phishing and SIM-swap attempts on your phone number. Be wary of targeted scams that use your personal details to sound convincing.

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