Normal operations have been restored on the government’s e-Citizen platform after facing disruptions caused by an attempted cyber-attack. ICT CS Eliud Owalo confirmed the hacking attempt during the week, but the Ministry of Interior and National Administration announced that the platform is now functioning optimally.
In a statement, the Ministry informed the public that e-Citizen services (ecitizen.go.ke) have resumed following an unfortunate downtime since Sunday, July 23, 2023. The disruption resulted from a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) technique, where the platform was overwhelmed with massive traffic from multiple sources, rendering it temporarily unavailable to legitimate users and affecting services.
“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,” said the ministry.
Despite the cyber-attack, the Ministry, led by Prof. Kithure Kindiki, reassured the public that no sensitive data was accessed or lost during the incident due to robust data protection measures put in place by responsible agencies.
The statement emphasized that the attack highlights the presence of malicious actors both locally and internationally, underscoring the government’s commitment to strengthen cyber-security measures to safeguard Critical Information Infrastructure and data from such threats.
The Interior Ministry urged Kenyans, government, and private institutions to prioritize and invest in cyber protection to mitigate the risks posed by cyber attacks.