State House Website president.go.ke Hacked as Hackers Demand 4 Million From Government
The hackers wrote on the defaced page that this was their third warning to the President. They threatened to release everything they have if payment is not made before 6 pm today.
Photo: Courtesy.
By Robert Mutasi
Kenya’s top government official website has been compromised after unknown hackers took over the official portal for the President.
On Saturday, July 18, anyone who visited president.go.ke, which is the official website of the President of Kenya, could not find normal State House information. Instead, the homepage had been completely defaced and replaced with insulting messages aimed directly at President William Ruto, along with a demand for money in cryptocurrency.
According to a check done by Kenyans.co.ke, the attackers removed all official content and posted their own message. The message contained serious allegations against the Head of State, a Bitcoin wallet address where money should be sent, and a threat to leak what they claim is sensitive information about the President if their demands are not met.
The hackers wrote on the defaced page that this was their third warning to the President. They threatened to release everything they have if payment is not made before 6 pm today. “This message is the third time for you; before we leak everything about you. Do a payment of 5 bitcoins to the Bitcoin wallet… If you want peace before 6 o’clock this evening,” part of the message read.
The official State House logo and branding could still be seen in the background, but the main banner and body had been changed to show the hackers’ message, which also mentioned three names.
How Much Are Hackers Asking For?
While early social media posts said the hackers wanted Ksh8 million, the actual demand on the site is 5 Bitcoins. Based on current market rates where one Bitcoin is trading at around Ksh8,267,574.48, the total ransom is about Ksh41.3 million.
State House has confirmed the incident. In a short statement sent to Kenyans.co.ke on Saturday, officials said they are aware of the breach and that their ICT technical team is working to restore the website and investigate what happened. They have not said whether they will pay or whether any government data has been stolen.
A Bigger Security Problem
This attack has sparked fresh debate about how secure Kenya’s government systems are. Experts are asking whether the hackers only managed to change the front page, which is called defacement, or whether they went deeper into the back-end of the website where private files are kept.
This is not the first time it has happened. In November last year, Kenya suffered a large coordinated cyberattack that hit many ministries and government agencies. Websites for Health, Education, Labour, Environment, ICT, Tourism, Interior and even State House were all defaced at the same time. During that attack, official pages were replaced with unauthorized content, some showing extremist messages, and many public services went offline for hours. At that time, the Ministry of Defence and the National Treasury were reported to be among the few that were not affected.
The repeated attacks have raised questions about the safety of Kenya’s digital infrastructure and whether enough money is being invested in cybersecurity to protect critical government platforms.
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