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OneMoney System Glitch Allows Customer To Steal $10K

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Staff Writer

A OneMoney system problem allowed customers to transfer money to each other without their balance deducted. The glitch was taken advantage of by a woman to transfer some Zwg 136,442 (About US $10k) in May, Kukurigo reported today.

The woman, named Clara Ncube, transferred the money over 4 days ensuring that the transfers were below the Zwg 2,400 limit.

NetOne, the government telecoms company that operates NetOne, eventually discovered the system bug and fixed the problem. The company also managed to recover ZWG 112,042 of the stolen money. The matter was reported to the police and the woman taken to court, where she was sentenced to an effective 211 hours of community services.

It’s not clear just how many customers took advantage of this glitch. Companies generally try to avoid making it public when their systems are breached. This particular matter only surfaced likely because a journalist attended court.

OneMoney is a mobile money wallet solution in Zimbabwe offered to NetOne’s customers. Competing wallets in the market include Innbucks, EcoCash, OMari and Telecash.

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  1. Dumazi

    Now the problem has been discovered qnd maybe resolved what happens to us who can’t access our money locked in One Money. We can’t withdraw because we were told One Money is tracing it’s money which was stolen?

    Reply
  2. Dzidzai

    Cyber Security is important. When I worked for Altech Isis supporting the Vodacom billing engines, I had a baptism of fire on my first week on standby.

    Vodacom had created special sim cards that were to be given at a mass church gathering for free as a promotion with a few minutes. Someone forgot to limit the minutes and all hell broke loose.

    We had over 20,000 church members in numbers making free calls in the system after their allocated free minutes were supposed to be used up.

    Fortunately we had a system on the HLR to flag such transactions after a number had been provisioned. The only issue was it was a weekend and I could do anything about it without the tech help from the Vodacom side. It was a stressful weekend, solved on a Monday when everyone was back from their weekend getaway.

    These things happen, the faster they are solved the better. In Germany a guy transfered 200million because he claimed to have slept at the keyboard…kkkk

    Reply
  3. Muzukuru Wa ED

    Haaa Netone so, last year vanhu vaienda pa internet mahara

    Reply
    1. ED wacho

      gaya shaa, takatopisa ma gig masvinu kaa paya

      Reply
    2. Dzidzai

      I asked on the WeVotED WhatsApp Group that the civil service and ZDF personnel get unlimited access to WhatsApp.

      It could have been a finger problem that lead to all ports being open and not the WhatsApp port only.

      My rational was that data is expensive, and the salaries do not allow members serving the same sort of lifestyle as their compatriots in the private sector, this would go along way in saving them cash and allowing them access to the digital economy.

      If Netone finds its self in a quagmire it certainly is not for free data.

      Reply
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