Kenyan Government Agencies Targeted by Chinese Hackers, Reveals Reuters Investigation
According to a Reuters investigation, Chinese hackers targeted Kenyan ministries and state agencies between 2019 and 2019 to assess Beijing’s debt.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that years-long cyberattacks began in 2019 when the Chinese began cutting off credit to Kenya due to mounting debt pressures.
According to Reuters, the security breach began with a spearphishing attack after an unwitting State employee downloaded an infected document. Chinese hackers have targeted Kenyan government agencies, according to a Reuters investigation.
The attacks targeted the Presidency and eight key ministries, including the foreign and finance ministries, as well as departments of state.
Kenya owed China $6.31 billion in March of last year, the smallest amount since $6.01 billion in March of 2019, after reaching a peak of $7.06 billion in June of 2021.
The decline is consistent with Beijing’s cautious approach to lending to Kenya and Africa in the post-Covid era, amid warnings that key economies in the continent were facing a multitude of debt tripwires as a result of a protracted global economic crisis and could default on payments.
After a few African nations, including Angola and Ethiopia, struggled to meet their obligations, and Zambia defaulted, investment in Africa’s infrastructure projects slowed down.
This comes at a time when President William Ruto has made it clear that his administration will reduce costly foreign borrowing, including from wealthy nations such as China.
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The majority of China’s loans to Kenya were channeled through Exim Bank, which in May 2014 won the mega deal to fund up to 90 percent of the $3.6 billion, 485-kilometer Mombasa-Nairobi SGR line (approximately Sh492 billion at the current exchange rate).
The SGR deal saw Beijing overtake Tokyo as Kenya’s largest bilateral lender.
According to a dataset compiled by AidData, a US research lab at the College of William & Mary, the terms of Beijing’s loan agreements with developing nations are typically confidential and require borrowing nations such as Kenya to prioritize repayment to Chinese state-owned banks over other creditors.
This fiscal year, Kenya’s bilateral debt repayments for China-funded infrastructure projects increased by nearly half to a new high of Sh107.42 billion due to an increase in the clearance of principal sums after the grace period expired.
The expenditure data published by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u indicates that the amount repaid to Chinese lenders was 46.19 percent greater than Sh73.48 billion in the preceding fiscal year.
This follows the expiration of the repayment moratorium four years ago.
Kenyan Government Agencies Targeted by Chinese Hackers, Reveals Reuters Investigation
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