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It has been revealed that the man accused of fraudulently obtaining the personal data of millions of South Africans from the Experian credit bureau is Karabo Phungula, the founder of Hi-Pixel Communications.
However, Phungula stated that he has had no dealings with Experian and that he is being indicted for the leak of the personal data of 24 million South Africans and 793,749 companies.
Phungula’s identity was first revealed by iAfrikan. MyBroadband has been able to confirm his identity and interviewed him by phone for this report.
“Basically, I have no idea what’s going on,” Phungula told MyBroadband.
After being accused of gaining access to the personal data of millions of South Africans by posing as a legitimate Experian customer, Phungula found himself on the receiving end of an order from Anton Piller.
He said a court bailiff came to his parents’ home, which is the registered address of their business, and requested all of their computing devices.
An Anton Piller warrant is a court order that gives the Sheriff the right to search and seize evidence without warning the subject of the warrant. It is granted in civil matters, not criminal, to avoid the potential destruction of evidence.
Phungula said he went with the sheriff from his parents’ home to where he lives so they could seize his computer and two phones to search for evidence.
Experian told iAfrikan it found data “containing the keywords of Anton Piller’s order” on the hardware that was seized.
History in direct marketing
Phungula has worked in the direct marketing industry for the better part of a decade. He said that from 2010 to 2011, he was an IT consultant for the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa (DMASA).
His role at DMASA included serving as the organization’s webmaster. In 2011, you answered MyBroadband’s questions about the DMASA website hacked. Later that year, she launched an ad-supported SMS service called KujoSMS.
For the past ten years, he has also been dedicated to lead generation through Hi-Pixel Communications.
He explained that he works as an affiliate with other lead generation companies and helps generate sales leads in exchange for a commission. Part of the work he has done includes generating sales opportunities for companies in the financial services sector.
Phungula also said that, like Hi-Pixel Communications, it had a business relationship with the Compuscan credit bureau in 2017, which was acquired by Experian in 2019.
He said there was a payment dispute between him and Compuscan, as they charged him for data that he did not receive.
To resolve the matter, he signed an affidavit stating that he had not received the data that he was being billed for and provided a copy of the data in his possession.
Phungula said that he believes he is being targeted because of this transaction between him and Compuscan that turned sour.
Impersonation of a director of Talis Holdings
When the information about the Experian data leak first reported by the South African Banking Risk Information Center On August 19, Experian soon released its own statement to explain that it was not hacked and ensure that no financial information is compromised.
According to Experian, a person in South Africa who claimed to represent a legitimate customer fraudulently requested services from Experian in May 2020.
iAfrikan reported that Experian confirmed that the person who was impersonated was Tebogo Mogashoa, director of Talis Holdings.
Phungula said she does not know who Tebogo Mogashoa is and that she has never dealt with him or Talis Holdings.
He also said that he has received multiple notifications of unknown login attempts on his personal Gmail account and notifications of successful login attempts on Gmail accounts that he does not recognize.
One of the unknown login notifications came from [email protected] on a Samsung Galaxy S9 device, which according to Google has Phungula’s personal Gmail address as the recovery address.
“I have no dealings with these people. I don’t know any of them, ”Phungula said.
MyBroadband asked Tebogo Mogashoa for a comment through his personal assistant, but he did not respond at time of publication.
Leaked Experian Data Discovered Online
When news of the misappropriation of the personal data of millions of South Africans from Experian first broke out, Experian was quick to assure the public that it had obtained the data through an order from Anton Piller.
However, security researcher Troy Hunt and iAfrikan reported in early September that the data has been found on the internet.
In addition to discovering the data on the internet, the data set was also found to be much more extensive than Experian first stated.
The database reportedly contained fields for identification numbers, names, addresses, contact information, and employment information.
While Experian had said that no financial information had been compromised, the database contained fields for bank account numbers and branch codes for the 793,749 companies that were part of the leak.
Experian confirmed the discovery, saying it would “take all available measures to reduce further spread if possible.”
Criminal charges
Phungula said that since the day of Anton Piller’s order, no police have contacted him.
He said he is not sure whether a case has been filed against him.
However, Experian told iAfrikan that it has brought criminal charges against Phungula, stating earlier statements that it is pursue criminal charges against the alleged fraudster.
MyBroadband asked Experian for a comment on the iAfrikan report and the case number of the complaint against Phungula.
The company’s full response is reproduced below.
The information requested is subject to legal and police investigations in order to ensure that the suspect is brought to justice and that we do not want to compromise or jeopardize the outcome of the criminal investigation and the legal process.
Experian is aware of not assuming the law enforcement role in the investigation and entrusting the actual criminal investigation to the authorities.
While Experian investigates the incident with a full team of experts, we continue to cooperate with law enforcement agencies and regulators. Our priority remains supporting consumers and businesses in South Africa.
Now Read: Experian Data Breach – Personal Data of Millions of South Africans Found Online
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