Leading Africa’s payment company, Flutterwave, has blocked attempted network intrusion and reported offenders to security agencies, according to management.

Sources familiar with the event said on Wednesday that the company had detected unusual activities in April and carried out processes to protect its customers.

Flutterwave is not the only company that has experienced these fraud incidents. There has been a rising increase in cyber crimes in Nigeria, creating trust issues between companies and their customers.

For instance, MTN, Africa’s largest mobile network operator, lost N10.5 billion to cybercriminals in 2022. Also, Patricia Technologies Limited, a popular crypto platform, lost $2 million that belonged to its depositors in January 2022, leading to the suspension of the platform.

Commercial banks have also been affected. Access Bank, one of the largest banks in Nigeria, filed a lawsuit in June 2023 to retrieve N30 billion and another in July 2023 to retrieve N5 billion that were lost to hackers.

Meanwhile, on March 5, 2023, Flutterwave also denied claims that its account was hacked and that N2.9 billion was illegally transferred from its account to several other accounts. However, court documents revealed that the company had sought police assistance to recover what was stolen.

On confirming the unauthorised activities, Flutterwave immediately informed law enforcement agencies and handed over the IP address and details of the offenders.

Flutterwave has assured its customers and stakeholders that their funds were not affected and are safe with them, according to a statement by the company.

Our sources confirm that in April, Flutterwave detected unusual activities on one of its platforms, which a few customers use for specific business transactions.

The platform’s security stopped the breach before customer funds were impacted. Flutterwave informed the regulator while reporting the case to the relevant law enforcement. According to insiders, Flutterwave will undertake improvements on the said platform and move their users to another platform to ensure business continuity for their customers.

In a statement shared by the company, Flutterwave further advised its customers to take advantage of the security measures available while using Flutterwave, as they also have a role to play in ensuring the best personal security practices.

Flutterwave’s Head of Information and Security stated: “As leaders, we continue to invest heavily in our security infrastructure to ensure customers continue to remain safe as they transact using Flutterwave. As a proactive step to strengthen security, we are enhancing safety features on the affected platform and will be migrating some of our customers to another platform to ensure they can benefit from the security enhancements. We will continue our advocacy for ecosystem-led system initiatives that will help in fighting security threats in the digital ecosystem across Africa.”