Posted on July 28, 2023 at 5:56 PM

Anonymous Sudan Claims Responsibility For Several DDoS Attacks Against Kenya’s Online Services 

Anonymous Sudan, one of the most notorious hacker groups that have been behind a wide range of hacking campaigns since the start of the year, has targeted several critical online services in Kenya. The hacker group has claimed responsibility for these attacks on Telegram.

Anonymous launches DDoS campaign against Kenya 

The cyberattacks launched by the Anonymous Sudan hacker group affected the websites of several government agencies in the country, newspapers, among others. Some of these attacks happened earlier, with some of them happening recently. The hacker group has said that more of these attacks might be on the way.

The Telegram channel of this hacker group shows that these hacking attacks were triggered by the ongoing tensions between Kenya and Sudan. Sudan has been engaged in a conflict that has been ongoing for months, with the Kenyan President, William Ruto, proposing that troops from across East Africa go to Sudan for a peacekeeping mission.

However, the remarks appeared to have been received negatively by Sudan. The Sudan military chief, Yasirr al-Atta, has threatened to wipe out any of the East African troops if they are deployed to the country. The military chief also warned that any foreign troops that are sent to Sudan would be treated like enemy forces despite their purpose in the country.

Sudan’s military chief has accused Kenya of meddling in the internal affairs of the country. He has also accused Kenya of offering support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Kenya has since refuted the claims, with the Principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Korir Sing’Oei, saying that Kenya was neutral in the fight between Sudan’s government and the RSF.

The Telegram page for the Anonymous Sudan hacker group claims that the attacks have happened across a wide range of sectors. The hacker group has attacked several institutions, including eCitizen, which is a portal used to assess critical services such as visa renewal and driving license renewal.

The hacker group also posted a series of screenshots on its Telegram channel of Kenyan citizens raising an alert over their inability to sign in to the eCitizen platform. The attacks did not just stop at eCitizen, with the hacker group also targeting a local newspaper known as The Standard. The group claimed that the attack on the newspaper lasted for ten hours.

Anonymous Sudan has also claimed that it was relatively easy to launch these distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns. It claimed that it faced minimal challenges in launching these attacks. The group also urged Kenya to improve its cyber-defensive measures.

Anonymous Sudan launches a wide range of DDoS attacks

The Anonymous Sudan hacker group has been behind a wide range of hacking campaigns since the beginning of the year. The group was recently linked to a DDoS hacking campaign that targeted Microsoft earlier this month.

The group claimed responsibility for the hacking campaign in its Telegram channel. DDoS hacking campaigns are aimed at flooding a server with much traffic through botnets to make it impossible for genuine traffic to be processed. While these attacks are usually less sophisticated to launch, they can cause significant harm in cases where they deny users access to critical services.

Besides targeting Microsoft, Anonymous Sudan has also targeted other countries, such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In May this year, the hacker group shared screenshots of eight websites that belonged to the official UAE domains. After sharing the screenshots, several banks in the region were allegedly breached.

While the hacker group claims to be an independent entity, evidence suggests that it has a close association with pro-Russian hackers. The group’s hacking activity shows a close connection with the notorious pro-Kremlin hacker group known as Killnet, which has launched a wide range of attacks targeting countries and organizations that have supported Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia.

Some researchers have also claimed that Anonymous Sudan is likely a Russian state-sponsored hacker group that conceals its identity by claiming to be a Sudanese threat actor group with Islamist ideologies. These ideologies have often been used by hackers as an excuse for the actions taken against Western and Western-affiliated entities.

The group’s hacking techniques are similar to the ones that have been previously used by Russian state-sponsored hackers. The group uses social media channels to claim its hacking campaigns fall under the hacktivist category. It also tends to make its attacks public, which is similar to pro-Russian hacktivist groups such as Killnet.