Uganda must prepare for cyberattacks, Bank of Uganda warns

What the report says

Bank of Uganda governor Michael Atingi-Ego used the inaugural National Cyber Security Conference, organised by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), to urge Ugandan institutions to strengthen their defences against cyberattacks. In remarks reported by The Observer, he said a serious cyber incident could move beyond a technical outage and become a broader financial stability risk by disrupting payments, businesses, public services and confidence in the economy. He framed cybersecurity as part of national economic resilience rather than just an IT issue.

Atingi-Ego said Uganda’s increasingly interconnected digital systems create both benefits and new weaknesses. He pointed to links among banks, telecom operators, merchants, identity systems and shared cloud services, arguing that a problem in one part of the ecosystem can spread quickly to others. He also noted that the central bank introduced cyber and technology risk management guidelines in December 2024 for supervised financial institutions, but said compliance alone is not enough without regular testing of continuity plans and recovery capability.

The governor called for stronger information-sharing, joint incident response and cross-sector exercises involving banks, telecoms, government agencies and utilities. He also argued for “security by design” in new digital services, including payments, identity platforms and public-sector artificial intelligence projects. In a related warning, UCC Executive Director Nyombi Thembo said the communications sector still faces major threats, including ransomware, denial-of-service attacks and phishing, even as some malware indicators have improved. The comments come as Uganda expands digital access and increases reliance on online services.