Kenyan authorities are investigating a cyberattack that defaced President William Ruto’s official website over the weekend, replacing the homepage with a ransom message and a cryptocurrency wallet address.
The government pulled president.go.ke offline on Saturday and has since said it found no evidence that sensitive data was taken.
The intruders demanded five bitcoins, worth roughly 41 million Kenyan shillings (about $317,000), and threatened to leak material if they were not paid by that evening, according to Kenyan outlets that saw the page before it came down. The message, addressed to Ruto, claimed it was the third such warning.
The defaced homepage, first flagged shortly after 2pm on Saturday, carried derogatory language and unspecified allegations against the president alongside the wallet address. By that point the usual presidential fare of speeches and press releases had been wiped from view.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!William Kabogo, the cabinet secretary for information, communications and the digital economy, confirmed the breach on Saturday and said access to the site had been “temporarily restricted to facilitate containment, forensic analysis and restoration efforts”.
