Inter-bank transfer restored in Lesotho after cyber hack

On December 11, the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) reported a system outage due to a cyberhack. The downtime which affected the national payment system led to the temporary suspension of inter-bank transactions in the country.

"Technical teams from the Central Bank of Lesotho as the Regulator and the banking industry as a whole are working tirelessly to resolve the issue and the nation will be notified as soon as the system is back in operation," CBL and The Bankers Association of Lesotho (BAL), said in a statement while announcing the hack.

Five days following the hack announcement, CBL confirmed the resumption of inter-bank transfers, with a caveat. "All banks are now able to process transactions to other Banks. However, customers are advised to expect some delays as the processing of payments is done manually," the bank said in a statement.

It's not clear whether funds were lost in the hack, as was the case with Patricia, an African-focused crypto exchange that lost $2 million in a cyber hack earlier this year. A joint statement from CBL and BAL indicated that both institutions are still actively searching for a lasting solution to the incident.

Lesotho is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, heavily dependent on South Africa, its neighbour. South Africa has been identified as the cybercrime hub of Africa by INTERPOL.

This is a developing story