Chris Obore, Uganda parliament’s director of communication and public affairs.

The Parliament of Uganda has lost control of its official Twitter account to unknown hackers, a move which has startled the legislature.

Chris Obore, parliament’s director of communication and public affairs, revealed the hack in a statement on Tuesday saying efforts to recover have failed, urging the public to follow the legislature’s new account on the micro-blogging platform.

The statement reads: “This is to inform the general public of the unfortunate hacking incident that occurred on the parliament twitter account (sic). The account was hacked and despite our best effort, we were not able to recover it.

“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.”

The attack on Uganda’s parliament comes on the back of a recent warning by INTERPOL that Africa is becoming a popular target for cyber criminals.

INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2023 says cyber criminals are conducting financially motivated attacks against vulnerable systems and businesses with minimal effort or technical knowledge.

With data drawn from INTERPOL’s member countries, private partners, and research conducted by the Africa Cybercrime Operations Desk, the 2023 report provides a comprehensive overview of cyber threat trends in the African region.

According to the report, some of the prominent cyber threats identified include, business email compromise, phishing, ransomware attacks, banking trojans and stealers, online scams, and cyber extortion.