Key Takeaways
- Hackers defaced President Ruto’s website on Saturday, demanding 5 bitcoins to prevent a data leak.
- The threat underscores why NC4 tracked billions of digital attacks on Kenya’s system early this year.
- NC4 and State House teams are now running a forensic probe to find where security perimeters failed.
Government Response Triggered
Kenya’s government is investigating a cybersecurity breach that briefly disabled the official website of President William Ruto on July 18, with attackers defacing the homepage and demanding a bitcoin ransom.
According to a report, the website, president.go.ke, was taken offline after hackers replaced its standard content with derogatory messages directed at Ruto. The attackers demanded five bitcoins and threatened to leak unspecified information if the ransom was not paid by Saturday evening.
William Kabogo, the cabinet secretary for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, confirmed that the government’s ICT Authority immediately activated cybersecurity response protocols. Authorities temporarily restricted public access to the portal to contain the issue and allow for a forensic investigation.
“At this time, there is no evidence of unauthorized access to sensitive data, data exfiltration, or loss of information,” Kabogo said in a statement posted on the social media platform X. “Government systems and digital services remain secure and operational.”
State House officials confirmed their technical teams were working alongside the National Computer and Cybercrime Coordination Committee (NC4) and outside technical partners to restore the page and determine how the security perimeter was breached.
This incident marks the second high-profile cyberattack on Kenyan state infrastructure within a year. In November 2025, a coordinated attack briefly compromised several ministry websites, sparking heightened scrutiny over the resilience of the East African nation’s expanding digital public services.
A recent NC4 report noted that Kenya’s critical infrastructure and government systems faced billions of cyber threats over three months earlier this year, prompting ongoing efforts to standardize cybercrime investigations nationwide. At the time of writing (July 18, 1.51 p.m. EST), the website was still down.
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