NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 16 –A new report has revealed a well-choreographed hacking campaign targeting aides of President William Ruto’s 2022 campaign.
The hacking attempts which began in July 2022, exclusively targeting the Deputy President William Ruto’s campaign accessed Telegram and Gmail channels, a UK-based publication, The Guardian, reported on Wednesday.
The report cited an investigation by an international media consortium which included over 100 investigative journalists.
Israeli hackers were able to access emails and private chats of digital strategist Dennis Itumbi and Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir, then Ruto’s Chief of Staff.
Tal Hanan, an Israeli national and former military operative, led a team of experts in a disinformation campaign targeting elections around the world including African countries.
According to the Guardian, Hanan, who goes by the pseudonym “Jorge” ran the operation from an industrial park 20 miles north of Israel’s Capital Tel Aviv.
He is said to have boasted to the undercover reporters that he was able to disrupt elections through sabotage and disinformation services.
“Days before Kenya’s 2022 election, he gave a demonstration of his capabilities, showing how he could use hacking techniques to infiltrate the messages of political advisers,” The Guardian reported.
During his meetings with the undercover journalists, The Guardian said Hanan never explicitly confirmed he had been hired to work in Kenya nor revealed the identity of his client(s).
“However, when demonstrating Team Jorge’s capabilities to the journalists, who were posing as prospective clients, Hanan appeared to show them “live” demonstrations of hacks targeting three aides close to Ruto, who was a presidential candidate at the time,” The Guardian reported.
One demonstration involved an apparent infiltration of Gmail and another targeted Telegram accounts.
Stages messaging to mislead hackers
Reacting to the new revelations, Itumbi said Thursday that there was increased activity on his Telegram towards the end of the campaign period.
He however pointed out the campaign used a few groups on Telegram to mislead hackers.
“Together with some other two people, [we had a group] to intentionally mislead those who were trying to obtain information illegally, we staged a communication on agents, saying how unnecessary they were and how costly the exercise was. We even concluded we will NOT pick agents,” Itumbi said.
Itumbi argued that based on the exposé they now “know the hackers believed our staged conversation.”
It is not the first time that such claims of attempts at election interference in Kenya’s elections have been reported.
In 2018, Channel 4 News, another UK-based media station revealed how Cambridge Analytica meddled with the 2017 Kenyan elections.
Jubilee Party led by former president Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto won the election.
