Huduma Centre issues fraud alert
Just days after the eCitizen portal was hacked, Huduma Kenya has issued a fraud alert about unknown people who are using another website purporting to offer key government services.
In a statement on Monday, Huduma Kenya said the individuals are using www.hudumacyber.co.ke, which claims to offer assistance with various government services.
These include eCitizen, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), among others.
“We strongly advise members of the public not to send any personal or sensitive details to them,” Huduma Kenya said.
Also read: e-Citizen portal back online after cyber attack scare
It urged those using its services to visit its official website www.hudumakenya.go.ke.
CAUTION: FRAUD ALERT! @ntsa_kenya @KRACare @eCitizenKenya pic.twitter.com/5Rr74evMa5
— Huduma Kenya (@HudumaKenya) July 31, 2023
Last week, the government fought off a huge cyber-attack that affected services on a key government online platform for days.
Also read: CS Owalo: No data lost in cyber-attack on eCitizen portal, don’t panic
The attack affected some private companies, although the extent the government is yet to say how far it went.
There are still questions over who was behind it and what was the motive.
While acknowledging the attack, ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo said that no personal data had been accessed or lost.
He confirmed that there was a cyber-attack on the eCitizen portal, used by the public to access over 5,000 government services.
The kind of hacking experienced on the eCitizen portal is known as a Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which disrupts a network, server or website by flooding it with meaningless internet traffic to prevent legitimate users from accessing services.
The CS revealed that the attack had been carried out by a group that identified itself as Anonymous Sudan.
The government has been pushing people to use online government services, and this, coupled with the widespread adoption of mobile money payments, meant many Kenyans felt the impact of the attack.
The government later said that it had managed to block the source of the attack although intermittent interruptions continue to affect the normal speed and access of services on the online platform.
Also read: ‘Your debit card information wasn’t stolen,’ Naivas boss on cyber attack