The impact of a hack on telecom company MTN seems to have no end in sight if the latest message to customers is something to go by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a message sent to customer, the telecom will switch off data and voice bundles on Tuesday night to person what they are calling an upgrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Y’ello! There will be a planned system upgrade on 6th Oct 2020 from 00:00Hrs to 03:00AM . During this period, data, voice and MoMo services will be interrupted,” reads the message to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This comes on the heels of a reported hack on MTN and another telecom company, Airtel, something that forced the two to suspend Mobile Money transactions between the two networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THE HACK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to reports, hackers last week broke into mobile money integrator system, making off with unspecified billions belonging Airtel, MTN, Stanbic, and other financial institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A reportedly shs1.3bn was swept off by the hackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reports add that the hackers whose identity is yet to be established, broke into the systems of Pegasus Technologies, a company that integrates mobile money transactions between telcos, banks, and other local, regional, and international money transfer services, making off with a yet to be known sum, but said to be in billions of Shillings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leading telecom giants, Airtel and MTN Uganda, as well as Stanbic Bank, Uganda’s largest bank that also backs up most of the mobile money transactions, were severely affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, in a joint statement released today, 5th October 2020, Wim Vanhelleputte, and VG Somasekhar, the CEOs of MTN Uganda, and Airtel Uganda respectively, admitted there was an “incidentâ€, but did not give details only saying there were ‘unprecedented technical challenges.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is alleged that some unscrupulous people hacked into the Bank’s system and started wiring money into other people’s mobile money and bank accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Officials from all the institutions are doing all they can to play down the scary incident even as the impact of the hack deepens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ronald Azairwe, Managing Director Pegasus Technologies Limited, could neither deny nor confirm the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “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 told CEO Magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pegasus Technologies handles MTN to Airtel and Airtel to MTN transactions as well as the respective telco to bank payments. Pegasus also handles Stanbic Bank’s Flexipay, a cashless solution that allows the bank’s customers to pay for goods and services via mobile money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The impact of a hack on telecom company MTN seems to have no end in sight if the latest message to customers is something to go by. According to a message sent to customer, the telecom will switch off data and voice bundles on Tuesday night to person what they are calling an upgrade. “Y’ello! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":16446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[356,98],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-19015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-story","category-news","tag-featured"],"yoast_head":"\n