NTV anchor Dennis Okari on Friday, January 29, confirmed that he had been the victim of a sustained criminal activity involving hackers targeting his account.
The investigative journalist stated that he had no access to his Facebook account for the past week adding that the cybercriminals were posting content on his site.
He noted that the hack was the second time in a year despite following all the authentication processes.
"I have tried to get it restored and still waiting. Ignore anything being posted that does not represent who I am," he stated.
A spot check on the account showed inconsistent posts with many being viral videos from other various platforms shared on the page.
Digital Strategist Adongo Kyallo, notes that recovery of a hacked account is possible on Facebook with the social media platform providing steps to follow to complete the recovery efforts.
"If you think your account has been hacked or taken over, Facebook provides steps to report and to secure your account. They will ask you to change your password and review recent login activity," he explains.
One may discover that your account has been hacked with changes to your profile details including password, email, name, or birthday and there may be posts been made that you didn't create.
"If the email associated with your Facebook account has changed, you can reverse this. When an email is changed, Facebook should send you a message to the previous email account with a special link. You can click this link to reverse the email change and secure your account," the digital experts adds.
Other celebrities who have fallen victims to hackers including Jalang'o who lost access to his Twitter account, as well as comedian Flaqo who briefly lost access to his YouTube account in October 2020.
Kenyans' rights in online and social media platforms are protected under the Data Protection Act and the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act 2018 that criminalizes abuse of persons on social media.
It deals with offenses relating to computer systems including but not limited to unauthorised access, interference, unallowed interception, disclosure of passwords, cyber espionage, false publications, cyber terrorism, and wrongful distribution of obscene or intimate images.
The Act also deals with computer forgery, computer fraud, cyber harassment, the publication of false information, cybersquatting, identity theft and impersonation, phishing, interception of electronic messages or money transfers, willful misdirection of electronic messages and fraudulent use of electronic data among other cybercrimes.
