Hacker group ‘Anonymous Sudan’ claims cyberattacks on key infrastructure in Kenya

Kenya is facing a serious cyber threat from a hacker group that calls itself ‘Anonymous Sudan’. The group has claimed responsibility for a series of cyberattacks on key infrastructure in Kenya, affecting various critical websites and services.

The group has also warned of more attacks to come, demanding that Kenya stop interfering in Sudanese affairs.

The hacker group made the announcement through its official Telegram channel, where it posted a message saying that most Kenyan websites would encounter problems due to their actions. The message also accused Kenya’s president of damaging the relations between the two countries and questioning Sudan’s sovereignty.

“Kenya has been attempting to meddle in Sudanese affairs and released statements doubting the sovereignty of our government. It’s president has destroyed the ties between the 2 countries and we will not allow him to further interfere in our affairs and think it’ll come with no consequences,” the group posted.

According to the group, it has targeted the backend network infrastructure of Kenya, causing severe harm to various critical websites. The group said some of the targeted include the eCitizen Portal, Kenyan Commercial Bank, and Safaricom.

However, the group asserted that the list extends to more than 100 other crucial institutions, the details of which they have chosen not to disclose at this time.

In their online series of statements, the hackers also criticized Kenya’s cyber infrastructure, claiming that they faced no significant challenges while executing their attacks. They described Kenya as the “easiest country to rape” in terms of cyber defenses, signaling their intent to continue targeting the nation until their demands are met.

“Kenya, please improve your shit cyber infrastructure, we encountered a grand total of 0 problems when running over your shit infrastructure to the point it got boring because no challenge,” the group said.

In a subsequent update, Anonymous Sudan threatened to carry out a massive attack on the entire state of Kenya, further escalating the situation. They claimed to have already gained unauthorized access to sensitive accounts, including those of citizens and government entities.

The group also boasted about successfully attacking prominent institutions such as Kenya Power and Lighting Company and M-PESA, a widely-used mobile payment service in the country.

With the hacker group ‘Anonymous Sudan’ vowing to continue their operations and threatening to attack Kenyan banks next, the situation remains highly tense and unpredictable. Authorities are likely to bolster their cybersecurity measures to thwart any further attempts by the group to disrupt Kenya’s critical infrastructure.

By the time we went to press, Kenyans were expressing their grievances about the inability to access various bank-to-MPesa transactions, the MySafaricom app, receiving push notifications to enter their PIN, and also facing difficulties in purchasing electricity tokens from KPLC.

On Thursday morning, ICT CS Eliud Owalo confirmed an attack on the eCitizen website. However, he reassured the public that all data remained secure, contradicting the information provided by the group.