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Cybercriminals Targeting Local Businesses

These days it is becoming more and more challenging to keep data 100% protected at all times. In fact, entire online platforms exist with various people on the dark web buying and selling information.


In the past few months, organisations dealing with debt review such as the National Credit Regulator (NCR) have had their website and databases attacked.

At the start of August, one of the 3 NCR registered Payment Distribution Agents (PDAs) had to deal with such an attack. Fortunately, consumers and Debt Counsellors who make use of the PDA would not have noticed any problems because no systems to do with actual consumer payments were affected.


Still, the incident points to the importance of making a good effort in order to secure sites, systems and internal networks against the ever increasing hacker threats these days.

DC Partner Now Dealing With The Hack

A ransomware attack normally involves a type of malicious software (called malware) that infects and then often locks or encrypts a victim’s computer files or systems. This can be a real pain and make it hard to carry on with day to day activities. In other cases hackers just grab and copy any information they can find.


The hackers typically then make contact with demands for payment (maybe in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin) in exchange for the decryption key needed to restore access to the data or files. Otherwise, they normally threaten to release the data online.

‘the good news is that Debt Counsellors and consumers who use DC Partner’s services are not being negatively affected’

This recent attack on DC Partner PDA’s head office was apparently orchestrated by a fairly new cybercriminal organisation called Krybit who listed the DC Partner data on the dark web at the start of August.

Interestingly, Krybit themselves have been targeted by other hacker groups (like 0APT) and have, in return, been going after their dark web opposition. It has been a sort of online turf war between different hacking organisations. It seems there is no honour between thieves.

In the wake of the incident, DC Partner PDA are (in line with Section 22 of the PoPi Act), notifying all the relevant stakeholders who might be affected, as well as following the processes to let people like the Information Regulator and National Credit Regulator know, so they are in the loop. So, emails and forms have been sent out.

While the whole situation is unfortunate and no doubt inconvenient, the good news is that Debt Counsellors and consumers who use DC Partner’s services are not being negatively affected.