It’s a Caffeine hit with Nespresso Data leak

Cybersecurity has been in the headlines a lot lately, with South African companies increasingly falling victim to hacking, malware, and data breaches.

Two of South Africa’s best loved brands, Absa and Nespresso, recently had their share of cybercrime trouble when the companies suffered large data breaches in which the personal information of their clients, suppliers, and distributors was at risk.

Here’s what you need to know about these major cybersecurity failures as we all do our best to stay safe online

Nespresso data breach: jitters caused by the latest major data leak to hit SA

Many of us like to start our day with a nice fresh cup of coffee, but for Nespresso distributor Top Coffee, the morning of March 8 began with something less appealing: a huge data leak.

The company, which is responsible for distributing the well-known Nespresso machine and the variety of coffee pods that go with it throughout South Africa, holds a significant amount of personal information relating to clients and coffee retailers in its database.

While Top Coffee was quick to point out that no sensitive financial information is likely to have been leaked, highly personal information like names and phone numbers may have been part of the data that was lost. The company has since fixed the error that lead to this incident and assured clients that their data has been protected.

Nespresso is just one of hundreds of South African companies that have fallen victim to cybercrime over the past few years, with the number of these incidents having increased since 2020.

Absa data leak update: 15 months later, worse than we thought?

Clients and suppliers were shocked in November 2020 when Absa announced that it had been the victim of a major data leak . The bank, which has almost R1.4 trillion in financial assets and 9.7 million customers throughout South Africa, was widely respected for its comprehensive digital security measures until the breach occurred.

According to Absa, the personal information of many clients may have been compromised in the leak. The bank is in the process of contacting clients who were directly affected on an individual basis.

This information was released by Absa following an extended investigation by the bank that lasted more than a year.

These two major data breaches highlight the importance of having comprehensive data backup and security in place no matter how large or small your organisation may be.

be proactive: protect your data with secure cloud storage

Cybersecurity measures like a strong firewall, updated antivirus software, and secure cloud storage are some of the ways you can protect your business against data-related crimes. Reduce the downtime and recovery of an unwanted data leak with encrypted and automated online backup.

To learn more about our range of cloud storage solutions, contact the Soteria team today.