The African mobile giant MTN Group announced that a cyber security incident has compromised on some of its customers in some countries.
The MTN Group (East M-Cell) is Africa’s largest mobile network operator, with a strong Asian market appearance. The company has about 300 million customers in 20 countries and an annual revenue is more than $ 11 billion.
The telecom giant said its network and billing systems were not affected by the attack, although an investigation is on to determine the exact scope and impact.
“MTN group would like to inform stakeholders that it has experienced a cyber security incident resulting in unauthorized access to some MTN customers in some markets,” Reads the announcement,
“The infrastructure of our main network, billing systems and financial services is safe and completely operational.”
However, MTN says that an ‘unknown third-party’ claims that it has accessed data from the company.
Regarding those claims, the telecom firm noted that its investigation has not confirmed an agreement for customer wallets and accounts, so it is not clear what has been exposed.
MTN says it has informed the South African police and its country’s relevant regulatory and data protection officers to support its investigation. The affected customers will also be informed soon.
Meanwhile, MTN advises customers to follow these measures to protect themselves from attacks:
- Keep a fraud alert on your credit report through any major credit bureau.
- Keep MTN, MOMO, and banking apps/devices updates.
- Use strong, unique passwords and change them regularly.
- Avoid clicking on suspicious or unexpected messages/links.
- Never share password, PIN or OTP via phone, text, or email.
- Enable multiferor authentication wherever possible.
At the time of writing, no ransomware actors have claimed responsibility for the attack in MTN.
Bleepingcomputer has approached the African telecom service provider to ask which markets were affected, but we are still waiting for the response.
