The government is taking caution over attempts by hackers to attack its websites in the past one week slowing down services to people.
The attackers who also targeted the private sector in their attacks unsuccessfully gained access to government services portals. The attack on Government websites entailed an unsuccessful attempt to overload the systems through extraordinary requests, with intention of clogging it according to ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo.
Over 5000 government services from 100 plus ministries, counties, departments and agencies available on the e-citizen platform were not accesible due to the attack.
Utility Services Provider, Kenya Power issued a statement in regard to the disruption of its services. The company said it is experiencing a system failure due to a network breakdown at its service provider.
Safaricom also experienced similar disruption on its services such as Lipa na Mpesa, Mshwari, Bank to Mpesa service.
Between January and March this year, Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) detected 187,757,659 cyber threats in the country, it issued 3,584,966 advisories. System vulnerabilities detected were at 153,615,491.
According to CA second quarter report, web application attacks detected stood at 128,514, Malware detected were at 26,400,530 and DDOS detected were at 26, 400,530 between January and March.
PwC identifies cyber crime as the most disruptive economic crime globally. Cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated and perpetrating fewer but more lucrative attacks.
“Civiid-19 accelerated the use of technology platforms within organisations operations such as customer management systems, social media platforms and third-party monitoring systems, especially in SMEs,” PwC says in its 2022 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey.
“This has created new aspects of risks for organisations to understand and manage if they are to guard against potentially significant financial, reputational and regulatory damage created by cybercrime.”
Cyber attacks in Kenya rise 59% in Q2, 2021-Kaspersky
