Eliud Owalo, the cabinet secretary for information, communication and the digital economy, has verified that the eCitizen platform was actually compromised.
On Thursday, July 27, Owalo indicated that the online platform had recently been hacked and that they are working to resolve the situation.
He claimed that the hackers first slowed down the system before attempting to break in but failed.
“Yes, the eCitizen platform was compromised, we are working to fix it. By sending the system more unusual queries, they attempted to jam it. However, neither data nor access to it has occurred,” according to Owalo.
CS OWALO: There was a cyber attack on the eCitizen platform but no data was accessed or lost.
Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication and the Digital Economy, Eliud Owalo, in #TheSituationRoom
.@EliudOwalo @MoICTKenya pic.twitter.com/aLoziZYdzB
— SpiceFM (@SpiceFMKE) July 27, 2023
He further stated that the government had taken steps to address it and keep enhancing its cyber security in order to be ready for an assault of this magnitude.
“We won’t stop digitizing our services because of the hackers. We established and operationalized the office of the data commissioner and anchored it in legislation because we had expected this and wanted to make sure they carried out the mandate of data privacy and security,” he said.
“We are not just thinking of quick fixes to stop the current attack, but we are making sure that we will build an elaborate risk mitigation framework around this digitalization space for the purposes of sustainable digitalization,” he continued. A few days ago, when Kenyans attempted to use various government services but were unable to, for there was a problem with the eCitizen platform.
While some people still have trouble logging into the system, others’ have been resolved on their end.
