Attackers took over the homepage of president.go.ke, the official website of Kenya's presidency, on Saturday morning and replaced it with messages targeting William Ruto, Kenya's president.
- They also demanded 5 BTC, worth about $322,000 at the time of writing, as ransom.
The altered page kept the usual State House branding but displayed a Bitcoin wallet address and threatened to release unspecified information unless the payment was made before 6 pm on Saturday.
- It remains unclear what information the attackers claimed to hold or whether they gained access to anything beyond the website.
Kenya's Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, the government department responsible for the country's digital infrastructure, later confirmed that the presidential website had been affected by a cybersecurity incident, Reuters reports.
The ICT Authority, Kenya's state technology agency, temporarily restricted access while it investigated the breach and worked to restore the site.
The website still didn't show its normal content when The Coinformer checked later on Saturday.
William Kabogo Gitau, Kenya's cabinet secretary for information, communications and the digital economy, said early checks had found no evidence that sensitive information had been accessed, copied or lost.
- The incident follows a coordinated attack in November 2025 that briefly compromised the websites of State House, Kenya's presidential office, and several government ministries. Officials said at the time that the attackers redirected website addresses but didn't access or alter government data.