Kenya Power Offers 3 Alternatives For Buying Tokens Amidst Hacking Claims
The firm explained that the hitch resulted in a network breakdown from its service provider which disrupted the normal operations of some of its services
Marvin Chege 
Monopoly electricity firm, Kenya Power, on Thursday, July 27 confirmed that there was a system hitch in terms of purchasing tokens which could be linked to a recent wave of cyber attacks by a hacker group from Sudan.
In a statement, the firm explained that the hitch resulted in a network breakdown from its service provider which disrupted the normal operations of some of its services, including the purchase of tokens.
However, Kenya Power stated that its customers can still buy tokens from its banking halls, as well as mobile money platforms such as Airtel Money and banks.
A Kenya Power engineer at work on a transformer. /FILE
"We are experiencing a system hitch due to a network breakdown from our service provider. Consequently, some of our services such as the purchase of prepaid tokens through M-Pesa and USSD Code *977# are unavailable.
"However, customers can purchase tokens from our banking halls, Airtel Money, and authorised banks. We are working with our service provider to restore the affected services as soon as possible. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused," the firm explained.
The statement by Kenya Power came after the group, Anonymous Sudan claimed that they had managed to hack the electricity firm's systems, causing widespread disruptions.
Viral Tea independently confirmed that the token system was down, with attempts in purchasing a token failing.
"Transaction failed, M-PESA cannot complete payment of Ksh50.00 to KPLC PREPAID. The Organization's system receiving the payment experienced some technical challenges, try again later," read the message.
Officials at Kenya Power however denied knowledge of the attack, as some of them told Viral Tea that the hack may have been a hoax as KPLC systems were working as per usual.
The hacker group claimed responsibility for the attack through their Telegram channel, just hours after ICT Secretary Eliud Owalo revealed that no data was compromised after the group claimed to have taken down a number of Kenyan websites including key government sites like e-Citizen and top companies.
"In some of our operations, we have attacked the Kenya Power and Lighting Company and we will continue to attack more. Everyone thinks that all our attacks are Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) but we managed to get access to all the backend," the group posted.
Other government services affected by the cyber attacks included e-Visa.
