DATA BREACH: Hungry Lion latest victim in concerning rise of cyberattacks
You know the cybersecurity situation in SA is getting bad when not even Hungry Lion is safe. The threat group is asking for $50k ransom, and it’s the same crowd that got The Courier Guy. It’s getting bad.
Hungry Lion, a prominent fast-food franchise operating in multiple Southern African countries, has fallen victim to a ransomware attack. The attack was orchestrated by the MeduzaLocker group, the same threat actors responsible for the 2025 cyberattack on logistics provider The Courier Guy. MeduzaLocker has listed Hungry Lion as a targeted victim on the dark web.
The company operates 111 locations across South Africa, Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Mauritius. Dark Notify, a cybersecurity intelligence company, confirmed that no personally identifiable information (PII) was breached in this attack. Instead, the compromised data consists of structural Point of Sale system outputs.
This incident highlights the vulnerability of corporate networks, especially those relying on unstructured and decentralized systems. South Africa has made progress in addressing cybercrime, being removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in October 2025. However, the increasing number of high-profile breaches, including those affecting Standard Bank and Liberty, threatens to push the country back onto the grey list.
The FATF, in partnership with Interpol and the Egmont Group, has identified cyber-enabled fraud as one of the fastest-growing illicit financial flows globally. Stolen data is being used for highly convincing and automated financial fraud, contributing to the laundering of illicit capital through South African banks. Cyber resilience has evolved from being a technical issue to a matter of sovereign financial credibility.
Without proper measures to address these vulnerabilities, South Africa risks losing global confidence in its financial system.
Written by urgent.news from Daily Maverick's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
