At least 4 people arrested in recent Bank-Telecom Cyber attacks

More than 4 people have been arrested in connection with the bank-mobile money hacking that led to loss of unspecified amounts of money.

CID has confirmed that there was unauthorized access by criminals into a system of one of the aggregators which enables communication between banks and telecoms.

While addressing the press in Kampala on Wednesday afternoon, Twiine Charles Mansio the CID Spokesperson said that they received allegation that some amount of money was stolen by the criminals.

“It’s alleged that some amount of money was taken. I cannot neither deny nor accept. But what I can tell you is that investigations are vigorously being undertaken by a team of proficient investigators and we are very certain that upon the system audit, we shall know how much got lost and how the offence was orchestrated and later on occasioned” Twiine said.

According to Twiine, more than 4 people have been arrested in connection with the crime and police is processing them with a view of linking them to the scene of crime and some accomplices who are still at large.

He warned the public that cyber-attacks are real and that recent reports indicate that US$1.2 trillion is lost every year through hacking and every after 39 seconds, there is a cyber-attack on a system.

“Some of the commercial banks and other institutions will tell you that every day they intercept more than 10 attempts. We are talking of a new crime” Twiine added.

He revealed that police is training teams to deal with these crimes, but also urged companies and individuals to build very strong safeguards both physical and software to stop such attempts.

He also warned that while some of the crimes are committed remotely, others are orchestrated by people inside the companies, advising them to always close their computers and avoid sharing passwords.

Background;

Stanbic Bank Uganda, MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda were forced to suspend all Bank to Mobile Money/Wallet services after a third-party service provider experienced a system incident which impacted Bank to Mobile Money transactions Saturday 3 October 2020.  

The telecoms also suspended mobile money services between the two networks due to the same issue. This suspension has since been lifted.