Amid growing speculation over hacking of systems in Kenya, the government on Thursday confirmed that indeed there had been numerous attempts to hack the eCitizen platform.

Information, Communication and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo admitted that there had been “unsuccessful” hacking attempts targeting the Kenya government and the private sector.

“The eCitizen portal is among the targets of these unsuccessful attacks. The attacks on the e-Citizen platform entailed an unsuccessful attempt to overload the system through extraordinary requests, with the intention of overloading it, but our technical teams blocked the source IP address where the requests were emanating from,” said Owalo in statement.

However, he denied claims by anonymous hackers in Sudan that they had compromised the eCitizen among other critical government platforms.

“For clarity, both the privacy and security of data were not compromised. The system was not hacked.”

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The ICT CS admitted that the online attack attempts have affected the speeds on the platform making it difficult for most Kenyans to access critical services offered there.

“These attempts have, however, been rebuffed by the security systems and applications in place. Shortly, we will revert to optimal utilization levels.”

Owalo added that relevant agencies are on high alert and have boosted the security on the e-Citizen platform and all other Government services sites to avert any potential breaches.

“All systems and Portals under the control of the Government of Kenya are safe,” he assured.

The CS further appealed to all public and private sector players to enhance their cyber surveillance asserting that the government is taking steps to 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,” Owalo stated.

The statement by the CS comes days after Kenyans started complaining that they were unable to access the critical government services offered on the online platform.

This comes as the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs said the attacks on eCitizen had affected e-visa processing and asked airlines to allow passengers destined for Kenya to board minus visas.

“We are currently experiencing a challenge in the @eCitizenKenya platform which is impacting the processing of e-visas. We have advised all airlines to onboard all travellers destined to 🇰🇪 on the understanding that they will be issued visa upon arrival at all entry points to 🇰🇪.”




The eCitizen platform plays host to more than 5,000 services offered by the government ministries, state departments and agencies, as well as county governments in Kenya.