Three people said to have hacked into Saccos IT systems and stolen millions of shillings have been arrested in Nairobi’s Dagoretti area.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations Tuesday said the trio; Ms Zahra Ahmed and Mr Abdullazac Rajab who are Kenyan nationals and Ugandan citizen Mr Patrick Emmanuel Gabantu were taken in for questioning and are expected to be arraigned today to face criminal charges.
“#ARRESTED| Mr.Gabantu Patrick Emmanuel,a #Ugandan national & two Kenyans; Zahra Ahmed and Abdullazac Rajab have this afternoon been arrested by @DCI_Kenya Detectives for defrauding Kenyan SACCOs (Safaricom, Bamburi,Stima & others) millions of shillings. Several Passports recovered.” read a tweet by DCI Kenya, the Director of Criminal Investigations official and verified handle.
Cybersecurity consultancy firm Serianu Limited last month warned Saccos against operating IT systems without proper cybersecurity systems, saying it made them easy targets for tech-savvy “thieves”.
The firm said the Sh443 billion sacco industry risked collapse if urgent measures were not taken to address the security lapses.Serianu, which conducted a nationwide representative poll where 100 top officials of saccos participated found that 50 per cent of saccos did not see the essence of investing in cybersecurity.
The firm’s Managing director William Makatani said allowing employees to bring in their own devices to work was the greatest threat and called for enactment of company policies that deterred use of private devices for official work.
The Cybercrime Investigation Unit said about Sh17 billion was lost to hackers in 2016, with theft of credit or debit card data and financial scams, bank salami attacks and hacking of the mobile banking systems being the greatest targets.
While many saccos have been hit, none has confessed any loss fearing a member backlash that could lead to their collapse.
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