NAIROBI, Kenya — President William Ruto’s official website has been restored after being offline for several hours following a reported cyberattack that disrupted access to the platform.
Checks on Sunday afternoon confirmed that the Presidency’s website, president.go.ke, was once again accessible and functioning normally after government technical teams worked to restore the service.
The website’s content, including presidential speeches, press releases, policy updates and information on government activities, had been reinstated following the outage.
Government yet to detail extent of breach
Despite the restoration, the government has not disclosed the full extent of the reported cyberattack or whether any internal systems or data were compromised.
It also remains unclear whether the attackers only defaced the website’s public-facing pages or gained broader access to government systems.
As of publication, neither the Office of the President nor other government officials had issued a detailed statement confirming the restoration or explaining the outcome of investigations into the incident.
Website was taken offline after attack
The Presidency’s website was reportedly compromised on Saturday, July 18, when unknown attackers allegedly defaced the homepage with messages targeting President William Ruto and demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency.
The attackers reportedly demanded five Bitcoins and threatened to release unspecified information if the payment was not made.
Following the incident, the State House ICT team took the website offline and replaced it with a temporary maintenance page while restoration efforts were underway.
Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communications and the Digital Economy William Kabogo later said there was no evidence that government data had been exfiltrated during the incident, while the ICT Authority activated cybersecurity response measures to restore the platform.