Pegasus Technologies, the technology company that processes mobile money transactions has apparently been hacked.
The hack started on Thursday last week, and progressed unnoticed until Saturday.
According to sources, the hackers made away with billions in Uganda Shillings.
The affected telcos include MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda, as well as lender Stanbic.
Stanbic is the leading bank in the landlocked nation.
Stanbic also processes mobile money transactions too.
A statement has since been issued by Anne Juuko, Wim Vanhelleputte, and VG Somasekhar who head Stanbic, MTN and Airtel Uganda.
“Stanbic Bank Uganda, MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda inform the public and their customers that on Saturday 3 October 2020, a third-party service provider experienced a system incident which impacted Bank to Mobile Money transactions. All Bank to Mobile Money/Wallet services have since been temporarily suspended,” reads a statement from the affected.
“This system incident has had no impact on any balances on both Bank and Mobile Money accounts. Our technical teams are analysing the incident and will restore services as soon as possible. We apologise to all customers for any inconvenience that this has caused and reiterate our commitment to delivering seamless banking and mobile money services,” they add.
Ronald Azairwe, Managing Director Pegasus Technologies Limited has not divulged any details about the hack.
“Sadly I can’t comment on that. I can’t confirm or deny anything of the sort. I can’t speak about it. MTN/Stanbic/Airtel should be able to tell you whether it is Pegasus or not,” he says.
The matter has since reported to authorities who are investigating.
The amounts lost are said to be north of 1.3 billion Uganda Shillings (Kes 40 million).
