The Cabinet Secretary for ICT Eliud Owalo has finally broken his silence following E-citizen Sudanese hackers attack.
The CS, in a statement seen by the K47 news team says attacks have been unsuccessful trying to attack both Gov’t and private sectors in the past one week.
“Over the past one week, there have been unsuccessful cyber attacks attempts
targeting both the Governmnent and the Private sectors.” Said Owalo.
Owalo noted that the E-Citizen Portal is among the targets of these unsuccessful attacks adding that the attack on the e-Citizen platform entailed an unsuccessful attempt to overload the system
through extraordinary requests, with the intention of clogging it, but the ICT technical teams blocked the source IP address where the requests were emanating from.
“For clarity, both the privacy and security of data were not compromised. The system was not hacked.”
As a Consequence of the attack efforts, however, the CS says, the system has been experiencing intermittent interruptions that are affecting the normal speed in accessing services on the Platform.
“These attempts have, however, been rebuffed by the security systems and applications in place. Shortly, we will revert to optimal utilization levels.”
“The relevant Government of Kenya agencies are on high alert and have enhanced the security of the e-Citizen portal and all Government Services Sites. All Systems and Portals under the control of the Government of Kenya are safe.”
The CS detailed that the Government will continue its cyber surveillance efforts and encourages the Public and Private sectors to heighten their cyber surveillance efforts so that jointly, they can secure Kenya’s Cyberspace.
“We want to assure Kenyans that the government has put in place remedial measures to address the current challenge plus a long-term risk mitigation framework to ensure sustainable data privacy and data security.”
“To the Public, we encourage reporting of all cyber security incidents to The National Kenya Computer Incident Response Coordination Centre via: incidents@ke-cirt.go.ke or hotines 254703042700, +254 730-172700 or through the Incident reporting portal www.ke-cirt.go.ke(http://ke-cirt.go.ke).”
