Kabarak University on Tuesday, May 9, recovered the institution's Facebook page account that had earlier been hacked by cybercriminals.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, contact personnel from the university confirmed the information but did not reveal whether the hacker was traced and action taken against them. The ICT team leader also declined to comment on the issue.
A spot check revealed that all the posts from the hacker were pulled down and the first post of the day was an advertisement video indicating that May intake was ongoing.
Further, the institution changed its profile photo and cover photo to the university's logo and banner respectively.
By the time the institution's Facebook account was hacked, the verified page had 46,000 followers and 36,000 likes. Upon regaining the account, the page's likes had climbed to 47,000 and while followers nearly doubled to 72,000.
University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Henry Kiplagat earlier affirmed to the media that the institution had reached out to Facebook's parent company, Meta, to assist in retrieving the account.
He added that the cyber-crime case was forwarded to the authorities for action to be taken against the hackers.
"We've forwarded this case to the concerned authorities and the action is being undertaken. We do apologise for any inconvenience brought by the malicious act," read part of the statement from the VC.
The hacker on Sunday, May 7, posted a cryptic message noting that he was just having fun on the page.
"Hello everyone here, I just want to clarify about this account that was hacked. To be honest, I was just having fun so don't take the posts I publish seriously. Once again, I'm sorry," the hacker noted.
At the same time, the hacker demanded Ksh68,250 (500 dollars) for the university to regain its account.
"I will not return this account, but I challenge all of you to reclaim this account immediately-regards a student from one of Jakarta's IT-based high schools, (Indonesia)," the hacker claimed.
