‘Anonymous’ says it helps to expose corruption in Kenya By harry misiko

The ongoing cyber-attacks on web and social sites operated by the government, the military and top leaders is part of an effort to expose corruption in Kenya, an international hacktivist group has claimed.

A member of the hacker group Anonymous told Radio France International (RFI) that they infiltrated Twitter accounts belonging to Kenya Defence Forces and defaced several government websites after unnamed anti-corruption crusaders “cried for help”.

In its latest attack that has embarrassed the Jubilee government which has promoted itself in being “digital”, the cell Anon_0x03 on Friday night took control of Deputy President William Ruto’s Twitter account and used it to tweet abusive messages and a list of government websites it had supposedly hacked. The account has since been recovered.

A lot of corruption

“Someone asked for help, and we work for people across the world,” a member of the Latin American-based Anonymous cell told RFI’s English service on Friday, adding that they “feel that there is a lot of corruption,” but people “don’t pay attention to Africa”.

Other government websites hacked this week are Immigration and Registration of Persons, National Environment Trust Fund and Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), which contains sensitive financial data.

IFMIS interlinks government planning, budgeting, expenditure management and control, accounting, audit and reporting to curb misuse of funds and corruption.
In the interview with RFI, the Anonymous member warned of more attacks, saying “Kenya is a good target”.

The frequency and cases of hacking web and social sites operated by state agencies and leaders have increased since January 2012 when an Indonesian hacker called direxer took down 103 sites.

More than 10 government websites have been hit since then, including those operated by the Central Bank of Kenya (July 2013), the Attorney-General’s Office (April 2013) and the Transport ministry (March 2014).

Kenya Police suffered several attacks in 2011 while the Treasury website was hacked by ReisBEY Muslim Turkish Hacker in November 2010.

While the hackers have not been expressly stating the reasons behind their campaigns, a look at their posts on the affected sites provides clues to their motivations.

After infiltrating KDF and its spokesman Major Emmanuel Chrichir’s Twitter accounts on Monday, for instance, Anon_0x03 posted: “#cartels run Kenya, #sugar, #insecurityKE, #corruptionKE, #ivorytraffickingKE, #rhinopoachingKE”.

The hashtags confirm the Anonymous member’s claim that they were backing the fight of unnamed anti-corruption campaigners.

Runaway insecurity, the rot in the sugar sector and the slaughter of elephants and rhinos for ivory have all been linked to official corruption.

The hackers also said hacking was “war” and added that “violence produces violence”. They faulted “spending money on AK47s”— messages that ran alongside images of hungry-looking children.
Kenya could face more cyber-attacks similar to the recent high profile ones after it emerged that government officials have authored a document admitting inability to deter sophisticated hackers.

More frequent attacks

The National Cyber Security Strategy 2014 drafted by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology and signed by Principal Secretary Joseph Tiampati notes that cyber-attacks are evolving faster than cyber defences. The document admits this may result in more frequent successful attacks.

“These cyber-attacks may come from hacktivists seeking to publicise political views, from criminal organisations seeking financial gain, from terrorist groups seeking to inflict economic or political damage, or from state-sponsored intelligence and security organisations advancing their own economic or national security aims,” says the report.

In the strategy, the government is looking to bring in private players and regional and international partners to boost its capacity to protect the country’s cyberspace.

Even though the attackers targeted social media accounts and sites associated with the government, the incidents have stirred fears that personal data may be exposed especially after the authorities announced plans for digital registration of persons and assets.

Mr Martin Luther Bwanga, a former police officer who was attached to the anti-cybercrime unit at the Directorate Criminal Investigation, says Kenya does not have the capacity to deal with the current global upsurge in cybercrimes and there has been little investment in the area.

“It is not a secret that our police officers cannot match the sophistication of those who perpetrate cybercrimes. They lack the requisite training to do the job,” said Mr Bwanga, who is now a forensic audit manager at a mortgage lender.

He explained that some of the staff posted to the cyber-crimes unit were not specialists in information technology, raising questions about their competence. Head of the forensic department in the National Police Service Maurice Amata agreed with the findings of the National Cyber Security Strategy that the country was not well-equipped to face the growing complex threats.

“We always devise means and methods of nabbing criminals, but this being the digital age there are myriad threats,” he said, adding that all officers fighting cybercrime were well trained and equipped. 

Anonymous has also been supporting political dissidents in various parts of the world, including the Arab Spring that rocked Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. The group helped protesters hack government websites while protecting theirs from surveillance by state security agencies. However, some attacks seem to be driven by the ultimate prize for all enterprising hackers— money.

Attacks on Kenya have been increasing in recent times as they decline globally, according to statistics from Zone H— a site that tracks defacement attacks on websites.

Additional reporting by Justus Wanga