May 16, (THEWILL)- Flutterwave, a financial service firm, has suffered a huge security breach, with billions of naira diverted to various bank accounts by unknown persons, TechCabal said on Thursday.
While the firm has not disclosed the actual amount moved, the report said the perpetrators illegally transferred N11 billion ($7 million) to several accounts in April 2024. It also quoted an insider source in the firm who claimed the amount involved was at least N20 billion ($13.5 million), adding that the stolen funds were moved to several accounts in five financial institutions over four days.
The breach occurred a month after a court order was secured to recover $24 million lost due to unauthorised POS transactions.
Confirming the breach in a statement, Flutterwave said, “As is common in the financial services industry, there will always be attempts by bad actors to compromise the security of systems set up to protect and monitor services. In April, we detected unauthorised activities inconsistent with usual customer behaviour on one of our platforms used by a small subset of our customer base.
“No customer funds were lost or compromised, and the confidentiality of our customers’ data remains intact.”
Two executives in the financial services industry, who also confirmed the incident, said Flutterwave reached out to request KYC details of the accounts involved. They, however, maintained that the accounts related to the incident have been temporarily restricted.
The matter has been reported to law enforcement, the report added.