By Kebba Ansu Manneh
Officials of the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) have declined to speak on the alleged two million five hundred dollars ($2.5million) hacking scandal that rocked the Bank since last Saturday 12th November 2022.
The Voice has since contacted both the Governor of Central Bank, Buah Saidy, and the Director of the IT Department, Peter Prom to shed light on the development but up to the time of going to press, they both declined to comment on the matter after a series of follow-ups.
One of the staffers of the Bank who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed that the bank IT system has been subjected to hacking over the weekend, and the hackers have demanded for two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2.5million) compensation to unlock four folders of the Bank hacked.
The source revealed that the bank’s IT specialists have summoned an emergency meeting hosted by the senior managers of the bank that the hackers could not tamper with the most sensitive data storages of their servers and that both the treasury and swift code accounts are safe .
“I understand it is not a very serious hacking that affected the sensitive data storages of the Bank. I also understand that the Federal Investment Bank of the US has since blocked all transactions of the CBG for the moment and has offered to help CBG to trace the alleged hackers,” our source disclosed.
Source added: “However, we also understand that this whole issue is a scam orchestrated by some senior officials of the Bank including the IT Department who failed to give a detailed explanation and nature of the hacking. The IT Department is only talking about how to make a cyber ransom payment of D50 Million without giving details on how the whole hacking took off and who may be behind the hacking scandal.”
According to our source some senior managers of bank are reluctant to accept the voluntary offer of support made by Federal Investment Bank of US, adding that this situation coupled with the reluctance of the IT Department to expound on the circumstances and nature of the hacking buckled the heart and minds of many observers that the alleged hacking could be a scam designed to get money from CBG.