{"id":72090,"date":"2014-10-30T12:27:05","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T10:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=72090"},"modified":"2014-10-30T12:27:05","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T10:27:05","slug":"vodacom-fixes-data-leak-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/72090\/vodacom-fixes-data-leak-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom fixes data leak issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vodacom says it has fixed an issue which caused subscriber phone numbers and device identifiers (IMEI\/SV) to be sent to websites when accessing them from its data network.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Boorman, who is a spokesperson for the network, said that they recently ran a software update to increase the security of some of the services it offers on the network.<\/p>\n<p>Queried about what this security upgrade entailed, Vodacom said that it wanted to switch from RADIUS to LDAP authentication.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview on CapeTalk, Boorman said that the update happened around two weeks ago:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/174510496&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanks to the MyBroadband investigation, we identified a bug in this update which means that in some cases the cellphone number and IMEI number were sporadically visible to other websites,\u201d Boorman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs soon as we were made aware, we reversed the software update and are now developing a fix,\u201d he said. \u201cWe thank MyBroadband and its members for bringing this to our attention and helping with a speedy resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Responding to a report which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2014\/10\/30\/vodacom-called-out\">appeared in The Times<\/a> this morning, Boorman said Vodacom does not sell customer information to third parties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt no point do we disclose personal information such as customer names, billing information, or anything else along these lines,\u201d Boorman said.<\/p>\n<p>He confirmed that Vodacom does offer services which lets subscribers charge things to their phone bill, such as apps from app stores.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is especially important for customers who do not have access to a credit card and is a way to ensure sure that all customers can benefit from full connectivity,\u201d Boorman said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that they also support services where customers opt-in, such as Vodacom\u2019s Look-for-Me emergency location service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn these specific instances, we provide the cellphone number to the app store or service provider so that the service can be charged,\u201d Boorman said.<\/p>\n<p>The software upgrade which introduced the bug &#8211; which leaked phone numbers and device identifiers to other websites &#8211; was intended to make this process more secure, he said.<\/p>\n<p>This article was <a title=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/113149-vodacom-number-leak-fix-all-the-details.html\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/113149-vodacom-number-leak-fix-all-the-details.html\">first published on MyBroadband<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Vodacom<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Vodacom exposing subscriber details\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/72054\/vodacom-exposing-subscriber-details\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Vodacom exposing subscriber details<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Government may pull out of Vodacom: report\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/70979\/government-may-pull-out-of-vodacom-report\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Government may pull out of Vodacom: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Vodacom to launch sub-R1,500 LTE smartphone\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/70919\/vodacom-to-launch-sub-r1500-lte-smartphone\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Vodacom to launch sub-R1,500 LTE smartphone<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Vodacom launches streaming music\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/70623\/vodacom-launches-streaming-music\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Vodacom launches streaming music<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vodacom says it is no longer exposing phone numbers and device identifiers to web servers at random, and is busy developing a permanent fix<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":72092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,5882,27],"class_list":["post-72090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline","tag-leak","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72094,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72090\/revisions\/72094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}