Pegasus Technologies, a company that deals with money transfer transactions in Uganda has been hacked.
Reports reaching ShopaXo say that the hack began on Thursday, 1st of October 2020, and apparently went unnoticed until Saturday 3rd October 2020.
Reports reaching us say that the hackers have made away with billions of money in Ugandan currency from corporations such as Stanbic, which is the largest lender in Uganda, MTN Uganda, and Airtel Uganda.
Pegasus runs money transfer services in Uganda, the same way Safaricom runs Mpesa services in Kenya.
Statement issued.
Anne Juuko, Wim Vanhelleputte, and VG Somasekhar who head Stanbic, MTN, and Airtel Uganda have since issued a statement about the hacking.
“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,”the statement read in part.
They added that “This system incident has had no impact on any balances on both Bank and Mobile Money accounts. Our technical teams are analyzing the incident and will restore services as soon as possible. We apologize to all customers for any inconvenience that this has caused and reiterate our commitment to delivering seamless banking and mobile money services.”
As at the time of publishing this article, Ronald Azairwe, Managing Director Pegasus Technologies Limited had not divulged any details about the hack.
Only saying that “Sadly I can’t comment on that. I cannot confirm or deny anything of the sort. I cannot speak about it. MTN/Stanbic/Airtel should be able to tell you whether it is Pegasus technology or not”.
It is estimated that the amount lost is Uganda Shillings 1.5 billion, approximately US dollars 370000.00. The mater has since been reported to the authorities who are investigating.