In Summary
- Government has restored e-Citizen services.
- Government however, assured Kenyans that it is on high alert to avert search attack.
The government has restored e-Citizen services following hacking attempt that disrupted its operation.
READ ALSO E-Citizen Portal was Hacked-CS Owalo
In a statement from the Ministry of Interior and National Administration the government noted that the disruption was caused by Cyber attack on the platform through Distributed Denial of Services DDoS technique which involve flooding to the target simultaneously.
Government however, assured Kenyans that it is on high alert to avert search attack.
‘’We wish to notify the general public that services through the e-Citizen platform (ecitizen.go.ke) have resumed following a regrettable downtime since Sunday, July 23, 2023. Our Cybersecurity Response Team has since established that the momentary disruption was caused by an attempted cyberattack on the platform through Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) technique, which involved flooding the target system with massive traffic from multiple sources simultaneously. Consequently, the platform was overloaded and rendered unavailable to genuine users thereby causing interference of the services. However, no data was accessed or lost during the incident, owing to the comprehensive data protection measures put in place by the responsible agencies. The attack not only indicates that we are surrounded by malicious actors, both locally and internationally, but also vindicates the government’s relentless pursuit of stronger cybersecurity measures to safeguard our Critical Information Infrastructure and data from such threats.” The statement reads in part.
Other services that experienced hitch today includes MPESA,Kenya Power services {purchase of prepaid token] and Kenya Railways Services.
Kenyans Reaction
Nimejaribu kuingia e-Citizen kuanzia last week yaani imekua ikizunguka tu nikaenda Huduma Center wakaniambia system Iko chini I hope they are working on it towards achieving lasting solution Ili tupate huduma Mimi nilikua nataka kuapply birth certificate lakini Sasa nimekwama.” Eunice Njeri Kenyan.
“I am so perturbed with this hitch am a businessman some of the payment I receive and make via my mpesa but that has become a problem today..I received a message from Safaricom that I can’t transact..I think the government should be serious on data maintenance and such hitch should not be experienced again.” John Mukabana Restaurant owner at Nairobi CBD said.
