SWVL reveals security breach, denies access to payment data

CAIRO – 7 July 2020: The Egyptian bus-hailing company, SWVL, revealed Tuesday that its platform was exposed to a security breach that targeted the data of some customers, last Friday evening.

“On the evening of July 3, 2020, the company has realized unauthorized access to the system. The investigation into the breach is still underway, but at this stage, it is clear that the data which was compromised is restricted to names, email addresses, and phone numbers,” the company clarified in a statement. 

SWVL stated, that as soon as the breach was discovered, the information technology team dealt with it, adding that the breached vulnerability was secured, and the site was fully secured.

CEO of SWVL, Mostafa Kandil, said that the hacked data is limited to names, phone numbers and e-mail, stressing that the payment data and bank cards are fully secured by strong protection systems that are difficult to access.

Kandil said that his company adopts a system in storing data that completely separates payment data from other users ’data, indicating that the company has used a large Japanese electronic insurance company to verify the protection systems that it uses, and all data and information have been reviewed to ensure that there are no gaps.

SWVL CEO added that, once dealing with the breach, the problem was resolved within a few hours, informing users, logging out all users, and asking them to re-enter the platform through their passwords, as a precaution.