Irony of digital government foreign ministry hacked

Irony of digital government foreign ministry hacked

Photo:hackread.com

By MUSYOKA NGUI

If it is true that the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs accounts were hacked April 2016 then government must do all possible to secure tax payer’s information in confidence away from malicious damage.

According to available information, the hacking responsibility was claimed by “Dark Web” a set of websites which maintain online presence yet their IP addresses remain anonymous.

Collectively called “Anonymous”, the clever cyber criminals claimed to have stolen both confidential and non-confidential information from the government. The total sum in question is allegedly 1TB of data.

In a bid to drive fear among government operatives, the hacktivists claim to have leaked just a small quarter of the total cache.

It is important for the Information and Communication CS Joe Mucheru, NIS and Police to investigate if this leak was an inside job or it is from remote servers.

The government must also invest in more secure and technologically updated data storage facilities including encrypting information and classifying it and trusting few privileged administrators who must be held directly responsible for any security breach of data.

While CS Mucheru has denied the authenticity of the said leaked report, it is not lost on observers that the government appears vulnerable. Ironically, Jubilee manifesto was dubbed digital. What now is this?

State secrets must be kept away from enemies and secret watchers since the government’s prime responsibility is to protect its people and in this case its property-including State data. There should, however, be a balance between clamping down on whistleblowing and national security interests-something which the New Constitution 2010 is on path to realize.For more on this read https://www.hackread.com/anonymous-hacks-kenya-ministry-foreign-affairs/