Uganda: House Thrown in Panic as Hacker Takes Over Parliament's Twitter Handle

(file photo).

An unknown hacker has taken over Ugandan parliament's official twitter handle, throwing the August House into panic.

The incident happened earlier this month and efforts by users to access the handle proved futile .

In a May, 9, 2023 statement, the parliament director of communication and public affairs, Chris Obore says the handle was taken over and efforts to retrieve it have proved futile.

"This is to inform the general public of the unfortunate hacking incident that occurred on the parliament twitter account. The account was hacked and despite our best effort, we were not able to recover it," Obore said.

Apologising for the incident, Obore says they have been able to create a new account to resume communication and provide updates about the proceedings in parliament.

"We assure the public that we are taking all necessary steps to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future. We urge you to follow our new account @Parliament _Ug for plenary updates and official communication from parliament," Obore says.

In the past, there have been several hacks targeting high profile figures not only in Uganda but around the world.

In a 2020 massive hack, twitter high-profile users including US President Joe Biden had their accounts hijacked by scammers, who were believed to have targeted the social network's employees to gain access to internal systems.

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