South African property giant hit by major data breach

Pam Golding Properties has reported a data breach that resulted in unauthorised access to some of the personal information stored on the group’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.

This information pertains to some of Pam Golding’s clients, but the group stressed that no banking details, financial information, commercial information and/or other documents were compromised.

On Friday 7 March 2025, an unknown third party gained unauthorised access to the group’s system using a user account.

“As soon as we became aware of the security compromise, we took immediate action to secure our systems and removed all unauthorised access.

“While investigating the impact of this incident, we also immediately began implementing steps to contain the incident and prevent any further compromises,” the group said.

Pam Golding said it has notified affected clients of the compromise under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and reported details of this matter to the Information Regulator as required by law.

“We have also reported it to SAPS and a case number has been allocated,” it said.

“We are taking this incident extremely seriously and are taking numerous steps to contain the incident and prevent any further recurrence.”

The group said that affected user accounts have been secured, all active sessions have been terminated, and all user account passwords have been reset system-wide.

“We have reviewed all system access logs to determine the extent of the breach and identify any affected data.

“We are patching any potential vulnerabilities, reinforcing our security protocol, and implementing additional monitoring tools to detect and respond to any future potentially suspicious activity.”

Independent cybersecurity specialists have been appointed to investigate the incident and the group said it will adopt any appropriate recommendations to further enhance our existing access control measures.

Pam Golding said it is still investigating the full scope of the incident, and has made clients aware of potential risks.

These include:

• As a third party accessed the system using a user account, client information may have been viewed or queried;
• Cybercriminals sometimes use stolen information to send fraudulent emails or messages, purporting to be from trusted sources;
• If personal details were accessed, there is a small risk of identity fraud, although there is no evidence of misuse at this time.

The group has advised affected clients to be cautious about clicking on links and providing sensitive information, including bank PINS and user login passwords.

If clients suspect that someone other than one of Pam Golding’s authorised agents is attempting to contact them or obtain their personal information, they should contact the group’s Information Officer via [email protected], or the agent they usually deal with.

“We take client privacy and security, and our privacy commitments under POPIA very seriously and sincerely regret any distress or inconvenience this incident may cause.

“While we are still in the process of fully investigating this incident, we will be implementing additional security measures to protect all information and to minimise the effect of this security compromise,” it said.