Last month, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest startup by private valuation, was involved in a hack that resulted in the loss of more than ₦2.9 billion (~$4.2 million) from their accounts. according to local technology publication Techpoint Africa.
According to documents seen by the publication and reviewed by TechCrunch, unknown actors transferred the funds through 28 accounts in 63 transactions in early February. Police investigations are ongoing as Flutterwave, through legal counsel and law enforcement parties, has filed a motion and seeks to freeze accounts at 27 financial institutions that interacted with the missing funds, Techpoint Africa reported.
Several tweets about the alleged hack also surfaced over the weekend. Some provided information about the trick, while others She complained about frozen accounts that could be related to the hack. According to Techpoint Africa, the motion filed for 107 accounts, including the fifth beneficial owners of those accounts, to be placed on lien/no charge back (PND). This directive restricts bank customers from withdrawing funds from their accounts.
The cause and method of the attack remain unclear. However, one of the postulates of online comment is that the hack could have been socially engineered, meaning that the merchants’ keys were compromised, allowing the hackers to access the money in their Flutterwave accounts.
Meanwhile, Flutterwave, through a statement In this regard, she has denied that she has been hacked. yes
At Flutterwave, we understand that our customers’ personal and financial information is of the utmost importance. We take this responsibility seriously and understand that any potential security breach may cause anxiety and concern among our customers. We want to assure you that Flutterwave has not been hacked. As a financial institution, we monitor transactions through our 24-hour fraud desk and transaction monitoring systems and review any suspicious activity. We collaborate with other financial institutions and law enforcement agencies to keep our ecosystem safe and secure.
During a routine review of our transaction monitoring system, we identified an unusual trend of transactions in the profiles of some users. Our team immediately released a review (in line with our standard operating procedure), which revealed that some users who had not enabled some of our recommended security settings might have been susceptible.
We want to confirm that no users lost any funds and we are proud of the fact that our security measures were able to address the issue before any harm could be done to our users.
Our commitment to keeping our users’ financial information safe and secure is why we invest heavily in security initiatives, such as regular audits, certifications and licenses such as PCI-DSS and ISO 27001. These are in line with global best practices. in information security. management.
We want you to continue to trust us and feel confident using Flutterwave for your business needs. Our commitment is to enable your business to grow while keeping your financial information safe and secure.
This is a developing story…
