Information, Communication, and the Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo on Thursday, July 27 confirmed that anonymous individuals hacked the eCitizen platform.

Speaking during a morning show at Spice FM, the CS said the attempt to access the system was not successful.

CS Owalo noted that the attack was immediately noticed as it started by slowing down the system, which is crucial as President William Ruto seeks to digitize all government services. 

While giving Kenyans assurance of their data safety and allaying any fears, CS Owalo noted that during the attempt, no data was lost.

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“The hackers tried jamming the system by making more than ordinary requests into the system thus slowing down the system, but this was immediately addressed,” said CS Owalo.

No cause for alarm

The CS however noted that the occurrence was not an isolated case affecting Kenya noting that every country around the world is confronting similar challenges.

“This is not strange because cyberattacks are predominant world over. Wea re now focusing on building an elaborate system to mitigative measures,”

Furthermore, he noted that such attacks can’t stop the government from digitizing records and services, since the world is moving to digital spaces.

“We have been proactive by establishing an office of Data Commissioner and executing it under law.  This will ensure that we execute the mandates which include offering data privacy and security,” he added.

He said this will be done by constantly monitoring trends globally in cyber security and discerning the possible attacks.

A suspected Sudanese group identified as Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility on the cyber-attack, causing a downtime in the government systems.

The group claimed that Kenya was meddling in the affairs of Sudan and its sovereignty.

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“Kenyan critical infrastructure has been targeted and will continue to be, to teach its arrogant government a lesson to not meddle with Sudanese internal affairs and Sudan can do to it,” read part of the post.

Kenyans Forced to Go Without the Services

Kenyans seeking several government services like passport, from the Immigration Department and driving license, from the NTSA, in the past few days have expressed their frustration.

Many service seekers encountered errors while trying to access different functions within the critical platform.