Shs15b was lost through cyber fraud last year 

While launching the cybersecurity awareness campaign, Mr Arnold Mangeni, the NITA-U director information security, said they will through the campaign seek to raise awareness about cyber-related threats and empower Ugandans with knowledge to safeguard them against the threats.

“According to the police crime report for 2020, Shs15b was lost through cyber fraud. Banks lose the most, while mobile money users, who conduct small transactions, are also targeted by hackers,” he said.

Mr Mangeni also explained that internet and digital technology users, must be aware that much as technology has transformed lives, there is need to safeguard against cyber-attacks that have become more frequent. 

Cyber fraud, he said, had increased from 62 cases in 2013, to 198 in 2018 with the commonest attack being electronic fraud, threatening violence, defamation, offensive communication, impersonation, cyber harassment, theft and pornography, among others.

The campaign, codenamed: Be safe online, seeks to raises awareness on different ways of cyber-related crimes and how they are executed. 

The campaign will be supported by the Uganda National Computer Emergency Response Team and Coordination Centre, which effectively analyses and responds to cyber threats for better protection of critical digital infrastructure and availability of dependent services and support provided to government agencies, citizens and businesses.

Mr Mangeni said Ugandans need to be aware of the risks, which have exposed a number of people to huge losses. 

Uganda was hit by a mega heist last year, in which mobile payment service providers and digital payment systems lost billions after hackers hit a third party payment technology company - Pegasus Technologies.

The attack affected a number of payment service providers and digital payment systems, among them telecoms, banks and utility payment systems that use Pegasus Technologies as a transaction aggregator.