President William Ruto turned to Google, Alphabet's flagship company, to strengthen its digital infrastructure nearly a year after suffering devastating hack attacks on critical IT infrastructure.
As part of his State Visit to the US on Thursday, the President met leaders from Google who agreed to launch a cybersecurity operations platform.
The platform is aimed at strengthening the infrastructure against attacks from hackers and cyber criminals.
"The United States, Kenya, and Google announced a joint effort to help launch a cybersecurity operations platform to improve the security of Kenya’s digital infrastructure, including an initial pilot project to enhance the resilience of Kenya’s e-government services. Google also highlighted solutions for incident response and resilience-building measures," read the fact sheet in part.
The White House further announced that Microsoft, which will set up a data center in Ol Karia, agreed to create a new programme aimed at upskilling Kenyans through free online certifications.
The programme is projected to help Kenya fortify its resilience against evolving cyber threats and support AI training and research.
"In collaboration with the Government of Kenya and the University of Nairobi, Cisco launched in April 2024 its Cybersecurity Training and Experience Center in Kenya, the first on the African continent," added the statement.
"The Center is supporting the East African digital ecosystem, providing critical cybersecurity skills for future tech leaders."
In July last year, a Sudanese hacking group claimed responsibility for taking down a number of Kenyan websites including key government sites like eCitizen.
Government websites offering services to Kenyans like eCitizen and NTSA experienced downtimes for several days.
That, in turn, affected services such as applications and renewal of Driving Licences, birth certificates, business registrations, marriage certificates, passports, and certificates of good conduct among others.
The group claimed that it was targeting the Kenyan government for meddling in the conflict that broke out in the nation. The war is still ongoing.
Later, ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo assured that no data had been compromised.
"We have a challenge on the e-citizen platform due to that attack, but we are addressing it. We will ensure it is fully functional in the course of today," Owalo stated at the time.
