President William Ruto’s presidential website has been restored after hours of not being in service.
A spot check by Kenyans.co.ke confirmed the outage after repeated attempts to reload the website failed. The government had earlier acknowledged the disruption on the day of the attack, saying technical teams were working to restore access.
However, a similar spot check on the website on Sunday afternoon revealed that the website had been restored and was running normally.
After a revival, the website shows all the features that it had before it was allegedly tampered with the previous day.
Snippets of the President’s Website after restoration after hours of not being in service amidst a reported cyber attack.
Photo
Kenyans.co.ke
It remains unclear how thoroughly the government investigated the breach, as the full scope of the cyberattack, including whether attackers gained deeper access to internal systems or simply defaced the website’s front end, has not been disclosed.
However, be that as it may, neither President Ruto’s office nor any government official has issued an official statement regarding the restoration of the website as of the time of publication of this publication.
The Presidency’s official website, president.go.ke, was hacked on Saturday, July 18, with attackers defacing the homepage, posting demeaning messages targeting President William Ruto and demanding a cryptocurrency ransom to prevent the release of unspecified information.
Kenyans.co.ke was the first media outlet to report on this incident, in which the anonymous hackers demanded 5 Bitcoins, valued at roughly Ksh41.3 million, and provided a wallet address for payment.
They threatened to leak unspecified information should the government fail to meet their ransom demand promptly.
Following the breach, the State House’s ICT team took the website offline, displaying a temporary maintenance page. Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo confirmed no evidence of data exfiltration, while the ICT Authority activated cybersecurity protocols to restore the platform.
The President’s website operates as the central digital platform for government business, providing citizens with a direct communication channel to the presidency and serving as the primary hub for executive engagement.
The site publishes presidential speeches, press releases, policy directives, and Cabinet briefs, while keeping the public updated on the President’s daily schedule, official functions, and state engagements, ensuring transparency in day-to-day governance.
Beyond communications, the platform outlines the Presidency’s structure and national ministries, detailing their mandates and policy roles, functioning as a digital archive and public record of executive authority and administrative governance in Kenya.
The official website of the President showing unauthorised content after hackers hacked the homepage.
Kenyans.co.ke
