Kabarak University, one of Kenya’s top private universities, suffered a cyber attack that involved threat actors hacking into its social media account and flooding the page with derogatory content.

The University said that the motive behind the hack was to threaten its online image and reputation, and “posed the eminent danger of loss of trust from the stakeholders and the general public”.

In a statement, the University’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Henry Kiplangat, reassured all stakeholders that the University has taken all necessary steps to regain access to its Facebook page and prevent such incident from occurring in the future.

“We want to assure our stakeholders and the general public that we are taking all necessary measures to regain control of our page and prevent any further unauthorised access.

“We urge our followers and prospective students to disregard information posted by these criminals and to contact us directly through our official website or other verified channels,” Prof. Kiplangat said.

“It is important to note that any information or advertisements posted on our Facebook page by these criminals do not represent our institution, and we dissociate ourselves from them entirely.

“We understand that this situation has caused significant disruption to our online presence through our Facebook page, and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to resolve this issue,” he added.

According to reports, the threat actor uploaded a post on the University’s Facebook page on May 7, stating they were “just having fun” and that the institution had to spend US$500 to regain access to its social media page.

“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,” the post read.

While the threat actor did not change the name of the Facebook page, it changed the profile picture with that of an Asian man, leaving everyone wonder if the threat actor is of Asian origin, a student based in Jakarta’s or just another Kenyan.

However, on May 9, the University released a separate statement, confirming that its internal cyber security team worked with experts from Meta and successfully recovered its Facebook page.

“[The team] worked tirelessly and deployed a wide range of cyber security measures to recover the taken-over Facebook account within the shortest time possible. The recovery process took sleepless nights and long days,” Prof Kiplangat said.