The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has issued a statement on Tuesday, August 1, 2023, dismissing reports that its systems were hacked and Ksh21 billion was stolen. The tax agency categorically labeled these reports as false and baseless.
The controversy arose when news surfaced that a fourth-year student at the University of Nairobi, in collaboration with three others, had successfully breached KRA’s systems, resulting in the alleged massive theft of Ksh21 billion.
Nonetheless, KRA has vehemently denied these claims and urged the public to disregard any misinformation. The authority encouraged everyone to rely on their official channels for credible and accurate updates.
These hacking reports come in the wake of several cyberattacks on various government websites, including the widely used e-citizen platform that provides services to Kenyan citizens. The Information, Communication, and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary(CS) Eliud Owalo confirmed the occurrence of the attack.
“There was an attack. We are addressing that, we are not just coming up with instant remedial measures to address the current situation, we will build an elaborate risk mitigation framework. To me that was not strange because cyber-attacks are predominant the world over,” he noted.
Owalo noted that no data has been accessed by the hackers and so far no files on the eCitizen platform that offers over 5,000 government services from ministries, county governments, and agencies have been lost.
He explained that the hackers slowed down the sites but after learning about it they managed to secure the platform.
“They tried jamming the system by making more than ordinary requests into the system. It started by slowing down the system and we addressed it,” he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible for the hacking incident, or the website disruptions.
