Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) has responded to the alleged hacking of the institution’s student portal, stating that the reports are false.
In a statement signed by Robert Kinyua, the university’s Deputy Vice Chancellor, JKUAT clarified that the temporary outage on the portal was due to a scheduled system upgrade, not a security breach as claimed on social media.
According to the university, the upgrade was necessary to integrate the Student Household Fee component under the government’s new funding model.
“This information is false. All University systems and portals remain secure, and all student records and data are safe,” the statement read.
JKUAT further stated that the upgrade process required brief downtime to ensure accurate implementation.
Notably, the university pointed out that no student data or academic records were compromised during the outage.
The institution assured students that the portal has since been restored and that they can access all services without disruption.
JKUAT Student Portal Failure
A system failure at JKUAT on Sunday, December 7, 2025, caused student portals to display wiped fee balances, absent registration records, and blank financial pages.
Speaking to The Kenya Times, one of the affected students stated that the malfunction immediately alarmed the institution’s student body, given the portal’s role as the central records hub for academic and financial information.
For several hours, many students concluded that the institution had experienced a breach or a significant data loss after every visible balance abruptly dropped to zero.
The disruption became evident when students conducting routine checks discovered that fee statements had disappeared.
Accounts that previously reflected arrears or pending payments showed no data.
“Accounts that previously reflected arrears or pending payments showed no data at all. Unit registration pages refused to load, and course verification sections only had empty fields.”
Within minutes, students circulated screenshots across social media, solidifying the view that the portal had suffered a complete outage.
Because the malfunction affected all account categories, speculation about a hack spread rapidly.
Students Portal
The student portal is also central to academic administration at JKUAT as it contains fee ledgers, registration records, clearance status, and examination eligibility data.
The JKUAT system failure coincided with a hectic period in the school’s schedule, as many students had to confirm their balances before sitting the end-of-semester examinations.
Students who spoke to The Kenya Times said they were worried that the system glitch could affect their eligibility or disrupt scheduled assessments.
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Social Media Misinformation
Speculation dominated online discussions, with some students concluding that the system had been hacked by individuals or a group outside the educational institution.
Others argued that the university had executed an internal reset in error, while others fuelled the theory by suggesting a failed update or migration process.
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However, by midday, some students who refreshed their sessions noticed that original balances had started to reappear.
They stated that registration entries that had disappeared earlier returned to normal, indicating that the malfunction had affected the display layer rather than the underlying database, which temporarily prevented the portal from retrieving and presenting stored records.
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