“Fawry,” Egypt’s largest electronic payment company, is collaborating with regulatory bodies in the country to recover recently “compromised” data resulting from a partial cyber breach of the company’s application testing system, as per a statement released on Sunday.
In an interview with “Al-Sharq,” Ashraf Sabry, the company’s founder and CEO, stated that determining the extent of data encrypted by hackers is a challenging task. He disclosed that a total of 2,030 live servers used by individuals and institutions underwent examination, and it was verified that none of them were breached.
On November 9, Fawry affirmed that the financial data of all customers remained secure and had not been compromised, following reports on various social media platforms regarding a cyber-attack on its information system. At that time, Sabry informed “Al-Sharq” that “while our systems may have been subjected to an attack, an investigation is underway… but upon reviewing the systems, it was confirmed that no data was compromised or extracted.”
The company, established in 2009 and publicly listed on the Cairo Stock Exchange, referred in its latest statement to findings from Singaporean cybersecurity company “Group-IB,” confirming that “a distinct section of the application testing environment was targeted earlier, resulting in the encryption of certain files.”
There are no globally official figures for the cost of cyberattacks on individuals, corporations, or governments, but multiple reports suggest figures in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Efforts to counteract such “hacking” have given rise to an industry that reached a scale of $220.6 billion in 2021. The cybersecurity sector is projected to grow globally to $334.6 billion by 2026, according to the latest data from “GlobalData.”
Responding to a query from “Al-Sharq,” the president of Fawry indicated that the company has invested 150 million Egyptian pounds in cybersecurity.
“Fawry” stands as Egypt’s premier electronic payment company and the initial banking agent in the nation authorized by the Central Bank to provide banking and financial services to individuals and companies. Services include deposit and withdrawal from accounts, local and international transfers, payment of credit card dues, settlement of dues to government entities, and more.
In his interview with “Al-Sharq” today, Ashraf Sabry affirmed that the data encrypted by “LockBit” may contain certain personal customer information, including names, addresses, birth dates, and phone numbers. Nevertheless, he emphasized that this data will not compromise the safety and security of financial information on the company’s platform.
The number of active users of “Fawry” reached approximately 51.2 million during the first nine months of 2023, with a total payment amounting to 243.107 billion Egyptian pounds, reflecting a 70% annual increase.
Egypt is actively pursuing financial inclusivity, and as of the end of June 2023, around 44.6 million citizens held bank accounts, representing 67.3% of the total population in the age group of 16 and above, which stands at 66.4 million people, according to data from the Central Bank.
In its statement, the company highlighted that it has “ensured that all actual and test systems of the company are free of any indications or remnants of the hacking operation.”
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