Kampala—18 October 2020: MultiChoice Uganda’s two top TV brands have been hacked, TND News has exclusively learnt.
Both Dstv and GOtv systems were hacked into by unknown hackers, allowing hundreds of thousands of its subscribers countrywide to watch free channels.
The top management in the country is yet to make an official statement.
According to an exclusive information got by this publication, it’s indeed true that both DStv and GOtv systems have been hacked.
This cyber-crime, according to an expert affiliated with the company, has caused loss of billions of shillings in less than 48 hours.
“The team is on the ground, but it seems it will take the whole of tomorrow (Monday) or even Tuesday to rectify it,” an expert further told this publication.
Three days ago, GOtv announced it was undertaking a system upgrade, warning customers that viewing would be affected within specific times.
According to an expert, normally, when such announcement are made public, hackers take such opportunity to hack into the system.
“There are people who have been building their system too,” added the expert.
“This is a big loss to the company. For the meantime, it’s a hard day here.”
Asked how much the company could have lost, the source, logically said: “If StarTimes has about 20,000 subscribers in Kampala alone, and its subscription is daily and above, and GOtv which is in everyone’s household in Kampala alone has around 30,000 subscribers, how much is that?”
The source also reveals that it seems restoring the problem might be hard for Ugandan experts, calling it “a very big technical problem”.
“As I talk, a team from South Africa is flying to Uganda to help,” a source reveals.
Asked, to opine, what the hacker(s) where up to; money or just to let subscribers watch free channels (service), source responded: “I don’t think there is free service here. People are going into elections and such things will happen.”
“They have made money, there are people who might have paid to them, and it’s in billions of shillings.”
MTN Uganda is the most profitable company in making profits daily and DStv Uganda comes second, says the source.
The expert also warned Ugandans against misuse of mobile money and ATM services.
“It’s also wrong for someone to say go and initiative this amount of money and i will put my pin from here. It’s very easy to hack into your mobile money account, simple as well with ATM transcations after withdrawing money, do not leave behind you tranaction chits; it contains your serial number and someone may use it to compromise your account.”
This cyber-crime comes less than two weeks after MTN Uganda, Airtel Uganda, and Stanbic Bank’s Mobile Money systems were hacked. Police have made arrest and investigations still ongoing.
This is a developing story.
Discover more from tndNews, Uganda
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.