Kenya Government eCitizen Portal Under Cyber Attack – Affects eVisa Applications

The Kenya authorities e-citizen platform, which is used to process eVisa applications, has not been operational since July 24, 2023, and is down till further realize due to technical points. During this period, applicants from visa required countries will not be capable to submit or observe new eVisa purposes but can use any airline to enter Kenya under a visa-on-arrival, endorsed as a stamp in the entrant’s passport

They. will be topic to the typical eVisa cost upon entry. We will monitor the situation and provide updates to this information quick when the site is operational

Kenya’s authorities has been fighting off a vast cyber-attack that has affected services on a key authorities on-line platform for virtually a week

The assault has additionally affected some private companies, though the extent is not but clear

There are still questions over who was behind it and what was the motive

What has happened?

The authorities has confirmed that there was a cyber-attack on the eCitizen portal, used by the public to access over 5,000 authorities services

This was after folks complained for a number of days over difficulties accessing services on the portal, including:

Passport purposes and renewal
Issuing e-visas for foreigners visiting the country
Issuing driving licenses, identification playing cards and national health and wellbeing records

The authorities was pressured to promise visas on arrival for viewers who would have certified for e-visas due to the challenges with the eCitizen system

There have been additionally disruptions to train-booking systems and check for electricity

Mobile-money banking services have been additionally affected and folks relying on the popular mobile-money service M-Pesa to make payments at shops, public transport vehicles, resorts and different platforms additionally experienced difficulties

Safaricom, which operates the service, is but to officially remark and it is not clear whether the enterprise was affected by the hack

What’s the impact?

The authorities has been pushing folks to use on-line authorities services, and this, coupled with the widespread adoption of cellular money payments, meant many Kenyans felt the impression of the attack

Some 76% of Kenyans use cellular money, whereas 67% use the cellular internet

Confirming the attack, Information, Communication and Digital Economy Minister Eliud Owalo careworn that no data had been accessed or lost, though the hackers behind it had claimed to have stolen passport data

Senior. ministry officers on Friday held a meeting with private sector gamers to focus on points about cyber security, though it is not clear whether this was triggered by the attack, or had been pre-planned

The authorities says it has managed to block the source of the assault though intermittent interruptions proceed to affect the typical velocity and access of services on the on-line platform

Who was behind the attack?

A group calling itself Anonymous Sudan has claimed responsibility

It portrays itself as a group of Sudanese cyber-warriors and has sworn to assault any one who tries to intervene in the internal affairs of Sudan, but it is believed to have hyperlinks to Russia

The group outwardly helps Russia and has turn into an affiliate of the pro-Russian hacking group Killnet. It denies having hyperlinks to the famous international hacktivist collective – Anonymous

Anonymous Sudan emerged in January this 12 months and has turn into really prolific, carrying out steady assaults that can be classed as disruptive but not sophisticated

The group has principally been posting its messages on a Telegram channel the place a warning of an impending assault on Kenyan systems was posted on Sunday

It says it attacked the nation simply because “Kenya has been making an attempt to meddle in Sudanese affairs and released statements doubting the sovereignty of our government”

The Sudanese authorities has frequently rejected Kenyan President William Ruto’s attempt to mediate in the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), accusing him of missing neutrality

Last week a video displaying a Sudanese common taunting President Ruto and the Kenyan military went viral online

Then a member of parliament belonging to Mr Ruto’s social gathering recorded a video, which was additionally greatly shared, hitting back at the general

Last week BBC Cyber Correspondent Joe Tidy interviewed a consultant of Anonymous Sudan over Telegram along with a cyber researcher called IntelCocktail

The group denied having hyperlinks to Russia

“Those claims are all baseless and false, we from time to time write in Russian in simple terms simply because there are many Russian members in our channel,” the spokesperson said

However, a report by cyber-security provider Truesec, released earlier this year, highlighted that Anonymous Sudan’s Telegram account lists its person location as Russia

Researchers from cyber-security companies like Mandiant and Trustwave suggest the group may be working with or for the Kremlin but neither has confirmed it

Nathaniel Allen, a cyber-security expert from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, instructed the BBC there was no doubt it was a pro-Russian hacking group and that “despite its name, it does not seem to have verifiable linkages with the nation of Sudan”

He stated that its “tools, techniques, and practices mirrors these of different Russian hacking groups. And if you look at the group’s targets, they are principally Western or West-aligned countries and governments. It does not seem to have attacked any targets in Russia itself”

In June, during the Wagner mutiny, the group declared its help for the Kremlin

They explained it this way: “We don’t care or focus on Russian affairs, but a similar factor occurred to our country, and Russians stood with us, so we wanted to pay them back”

Joe Tidy stated it wasn’t attainable to draw any agency conclusions about the group’s true id from the interview he conducted

How was the assault carried out?

It was mainly a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service), a tried and tested technique used by hackers to flood on-line services with site visitors in an attempt to overwhelm the system and cause it to go offline

Anonymous Sudan used the identical technique in their assault in opposition t Microsoft services in June, their most high-profile previously

“They tried jamming the system by making more than ordinary requests into the system. It began by slowing down the system,” stated the Information Minister

Bright Gameli, a Kenya-based cyber-security expert, believes insiders may be involved

“DDOS to important endpoints are never random. One needs to know a lot of details to know precisely the place to hit, thus bringing a lot of systems to a halt,” he said

“We are fortunate there hasn’t been any exfiltration of data simply because that would have been embarrassing”

How well geared up was Kenya?

Mr Allen stated that “Kenya is most likely as well geared up as any authorities in Africa to reply to such an assault. It has a well developed cyber-security and computer-security rising response infrastructure. It ranks 51st out of 182 countries on the UN ITU’s Cybersecurity Commitment Index”

However, he pointed out that the nation was badly affected in so many totally different ways shows “the dangers of changing into dependent on digital technology for important financial services with out taking cybersecurity seriously”

“To some extent, countries throughout Africa are prioritising digital development rather than cyber-security when it is changing into increasingly clear the two need to go hand-in-hand”