There was an attempt to hack the official website of the President of the Republic of Kenya.

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy on Saturday, July 18 told Kenyans that it was aware of the reports regarding a cybersecurity incident affecting the official website.

Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo says that upon detection of the incident, the ICT Authority immediately activated established cybersecurity incident response protocols.

“As a precautionary measure, access to the Presidential website was temporarily restricted to facilitate containment, forensic analysis and restoration efforts,” CS Kabogo says in a statement.

The Ministry further says that appropriate mitigation measures have since been implemented, and that restoration of the website is underway.

“At this time, there is no evidence of unauthorized access to sensitive data, data exfiltration, or loss of information. Government systems and digital services remain secure and operational,” Kabogo added.

The ICT Authority is working closely with the relevant government agencies and technical partners to conduct a comprehensive forensic investigation and establish the full circumstances surrounding the incident.

Similar incident

In 2023, the government confirmed that there was a cyber-attack on the eCitizen portal, used by the public to access over 5,000 government services.

And just like this time around, the Minister at the time, Eliud Owalo, insisted that no data had been accessed or lost, although the hackers behind it had claimed to have stolen passport data.

A group calling itself Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for the cyber attack. At the time, Anonymous Sudan — believed to have links to Russia — had sworn to attack anyone who tries to interfere in the internal affairs of Sudan.

At the time, it said it attacked the country because “Kenya has been attempting to meddle in Sudanese affairs and released statements doubting the sovereignty of our government.”