Kenya Power has given its customers alternative ways to purchase tokens after a hitch in its system which could be linked to a potential cyberattack on major networks in Kenya by a Sudanese hacker group.
In an advisory, Kenya Power has told Kenyans that they can still buy tokens from the company's banking halls or Airtel money.
Purchases can also be made through authorised banks and vendors despite the downtime.
The utility has indicated that the downtime has been caused by a hitch experienced by one of its network service providers.
"Consequently, some of our services such as the purchase of prepaid tokens through USSD code *977# are unavailable.
"We are working with our service provider to restore the affected services as soon as possible. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused," read the statement in part.
The statement by Kenya Power came after reports indicated a potential hacking by anonymous Sudan emerged.
"Some of our operations, we have attacked the Kenya Power and Lighting Company and we will continue to attack more. Everyone thinks that all our attacks are Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) but we managed to get access to all the backend," the hacker group claimed.
On social media, Kenyans lamented over challenges in purchasing the tokens despite officials at the utility firm refuting the claims of hacking.
However, Kenyans.co.ke established that there was a hitch through attempted purchases.
"Transaction failed, M-PESA cannot complete payment of Ksh100.00 to KPLC PREPAID. The Organization's system receiving the payment experienced some technical challenges, try again later," read the message in part.
Other government services experiencing the challenges include e-VIsa and e-Citizen.
