Andrew Wasike
18 July 2026•Update: 18 July 2026
Kenya's official presidential website was hacked on Saturday, with attackers replacing its homepage with a message targeting President William Ruto and demanding a ransom of five Bitcoins.
The breach affected the official presidency website, president.go.ke, where the hackers posted a cryptocurrency wallet address and warned that unspecified information would be released if the ransom was not paid.
Information, Communications and the Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo confirmed the cyberattack, saying government cybersecurity teams were responding to the incident.
"Our cyber team is on top of the situation," Kabogo said.
The State House also confirmed that its Information and Communication Technology team was working to contain the breach and restore the website.
By Saturday afternoon, the defaced homepage had been removed, and the website had been taken offline, but services had yet to be restored.
Authorities did not immediately disclose whether any government data had been accessed or compromised, and it remained unclear whether the attack was limited to the website's public-facing pages or affected internal government systems.
The incident renewed concerns over cybersecurity at Kenyan government institutions, which have faced several attempted and successful cyberattacks in recent years.
