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Online hacktivists leak documents from Kenya’s foreign ministry as part of a campaign to expose government and corporate corruption across Africa

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"109460728"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"1">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><h1><span style&equals;"color&colon;&num;5c1414&semi;"><em><strong> &&num;8220&semi;In &lpar;a&rpar; few days you will receive full disclosure of the data – We the Anonymous will stand against corruption&comma; child abuse&comma; and child labor&excl;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;em> <&sol;span><&sol;h1>&NewLine;<h4>&&num;8211&semi; Operation Africa<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<h1><span style&equals;"color&colon;&num;5c1414&semi;"><strong><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It’s too late for Kenyan government to expect us”&colon; Anonymous<&sol;em><&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h1>&NewLine;<p>The online hacktivist Anonymous has conducted a sophisticated cyber attack on the government of Kenya by breaching its Foreign ministry server&comma; stealing a trove of data and ending up leaking some of it on the Dark Web&period; The cyber attack was conducted under the banner of operation OpAfrica which was launched last year against child abuse&comma; child labour and corruption in the African countries&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;HackRead&comma; a cyber security news site&comma; reported that a hacker affiliated with &&num;8220&semi;Operation Africa&&num;8221&semi; had told it&colon; &&num;8220&semi;In &lpar;a&rpar; few days you will receive full disclosure of the data – We the Anonymous will stand against corruption&comma; child abuse&comma; and child labor&excl;&&num;8221&semi;<br &sol;>&NewLine;A link to a sample of 95 documents was published to a widely known Anonymous Twitter account&comma; part of what it claimed was a one-terabyte stash of date from Kenya&&num;8217&semi;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade&period; The sample documents cannot be read using standard Web browsers but can be viewed using TOR&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;So far&comma; the documents appear to consist of mostly routine correspondence between Kenyan foreign ministry officials and other diplomatic missions&comma; trade partners and international companies around the world&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The dumped data contains confidential and non-confidential PDF and Docx files from the ministry server including email conversations&comma; security related communication&comma; international trade agreements and letters discussing the security situation in Sudan where government forces are fighting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army &lpar;SPLA&rpar;&period;<q class&equals;"right"><br &sol;>&NewLine;<&sol;q>Other letters include conversation related to weapon clearance in Namibia&comma; details about a business collaboration deal between Kenya and Oman&comma; several other documents discussing state officials visiting the country&period; However&comma; one internal email document is really interesting and talks about security alert for the ministry of foreign affairs’ staff sent by Information Communications Technology &lpar;ICT&rpar; stating that someone is trying to hack staff email IDs by sending phishing emails containing malicious links&period; The ICT administrator also shared a screenshot of an email sent by the hackers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-40848" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;hackread&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;04&sol;anonymous-leaks-1tb-data-kenya-ministry-foreign-affairs&period;png" alt&equals;"anonymous-leaks-1tb-data-kenya-ministry-foreign-affairs" width&equals;"620" height&equals;"415" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<h5><strong>The dumped data does not include email addresses or passwords&comma; however&comma; in an exclusive conversation with one of the Anonymous hackers HackRead was told&colon;<&sol;strong><&sol;h5>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>We have 1TB of data but at the moment&comma; we have leaked just one portion of it&period; In few days you will receive full disclosure of the data – We the Anonymous will stand against corruption&comma; child abuse&comma; and child labour&excl; The government of Kenya should have expected&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"col-sm-12 &lowbar;fullsquaread"><&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"middle"><&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>The leaked data can be accessed using<strong> Tor Onion browser<&sol;strong>&period; Remember&comma; in March 2016&comma; Kenyan oil refinery website was also defaced for OpAfrica&period; Another group <strong>hacked South African job portal<&sol;strong>&comma; <strong>Ugandan Ministry Of Finance and an IT company under the Rwandan<&sol;strong> government&period; The group also <strong>leaked details of 64&comma;000 workers<&sol;strong> from Tanzanian telecom firm for OpAfrica&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;A news release in January by activists described Operation Africa as an effort to mount computer attacks on governments in Rwanda&comma; Uganda&comma; South Africa&comma; Zimbabwe&comma; Tanzania&comma; Sudan and South Sudan and Ethiopia&period; The Kenyan government was not on the initial list&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The Kenyan ministry documents leaked on Thursday included email discussions of security preparations for diplomatic trips&comma; trade deals and a status report on the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan&comma; dated from the middle of this month&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;One document&comma; from last August&comma; contains a warning to ministry staff of hacking attempts using phishing techniques containing links to malware&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h5><img class&equals;"alignnone size-full wp-image-19843" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;konniemoments&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;04&sol;mucheru&period;jpg" alt&equals;"mucheru" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"400" &sol;><strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Kenya ICT Cabinet Secretary Joseph Mucheru<&sol;strong><&sol;h5>&NewLine;<p>Addressing the alleged hack&comma; Kenya&&num;8217&semi;s Minister of Information and Communications Technology &lpar;ICT&rpar;&comma; the ICT Cabinet Secretary Joseph Mucheru said the attack was a phishing attack&comma; as opposed to a hacking attack on the foreign affairs ministry&&num;8217&semi;s computer systems&comma; and that no classified material had been accessed&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&&num;8220&semi;What they did is they managed to send emails to people&comma; and people clicked the links to change their credentials&comma; and as a result they were able to access emails&comma;&&num;8221&semi; he told Reuters by phone&period; &&num;8220&semi;Our systems have remained safe and stable&period;&&num;8221&semi;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&&num;8220&semi;What we have been able to identify is mostly on security clearance &&num;8216&semi;Open&&num;8217&semi; as opposed to &&num;8216&semi;Restricted&&num;8217&semi; or &&num;8216&semi;Top Secret&&num;8217&semi;&period;&&num;8221&semi;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Mucheru said they were working to alert government employees on how to avoid being tricked by phishers and hackers&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Operation Africa hackers have threatened to make their attacks continent wide in Africa&period;  In January they had announced that they were seeking the dismantling of corporations and governments in Africa they blamed for corruption&comma; child abuse&comma; environmental problems and Internet censorship&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;In February&comma; hackers using the Operation Africa banner said they had breached a South African government database and leaked names&comma; email addresses and passwords of some 1&comma;500 government employees&comma; security site Softpedia reported&period; The hackers also took credit for attacking the Ugandan Finance Ministry and a firm supplying video services to the Rwandan government&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;In February and March they claimed to have stolen data from employees of Tanzania Telecommunications and defaced the website of a Kenyan oil refinery&comma; according to HackRead&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The online hacktivist <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;hackread&period;com&sol;tag&sol;Anonymous&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank"><strong>Anonymous<&sol;strong><&sol;a> has conducted a sophisticated cyber attack on the government of Kenya by breaching its Foreign ministry server&comma; stealing a trove of data and ending up leaking some of it on the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;hackread&period;com&sol;tag&sol;Dark-Web&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank"><strong>Dark Web<&sol;strong><&sol;a>&period; The cyber attack was conducted under the banner of operation OpAfrica which was launched last year against child abuse&comma; child labour and corruption in the African countries&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The dumped data contains confidential and non-confidential PDF and Docx files from the ministry server including email conversations&comma; security related communication&comma; international trade agreements and letters discussing the security situation in Sudan where government forces are fighting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army &lpar;SPLA&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><q class&equals;"right">&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It’s too late for Kenyan government to expect us”&colon; Anonymous<&sol;q><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Other letters include conversation related to weapon clearance in Namibia&comma; details about a business collaboration deal between Kenya and Oman&comma; several other documents discussing state officials visiting the country&period; However&comma; one internal email document is really interesting and talks about security alert for the ministry of foreign affairs’ staff sent by Information Communications Technology &lpar;ICT&rpar; stating that someone is trying to hack staff email IDs by sending phishing emails containing malicious links&period; The ICT administrator also shared a screenshot of an email sent by the hackers<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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