The Independent Electoral Commission (IEBC) has admitted that there were attempts to have the commission’s data base hacked in to last year.
IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati told the Justice and legal affairs committee that although the attempts were made they were not successful.
Wafula who was appearing to shed light on the election preparedness ahead of August 8 elections however said that the commission will invest in full proof ICT system that will not be prone to any form of hacking.
He said: “yes I admit there were hacking attempts that were made on our systems but were not successful because we thwarted them.”
The admission by Chebukati came just days after Police said that they were looking into possibilities that a top politician and a cartel of hackers were suspected of trying to hack into the country’s elections database.
Detectives claimed the hackers had developed a system capable of overriding the IEBC computer network. Again, no independent evidence was provided for this assertion.
Following the move leader of majority in the national assembly Aden Duale, demanded the identification and arrest of the said member whom he claimed comes from the opposition side.
The sentiments of Chebukati came even as the committee threatened to take away Sh200m from the judiciary and allocate it to the commission in order to punish them for extending the voter registration exercise without considering the budget constraints that it subjected to the commission.
Committee chairperson Samuel Chepkonga said that the Judiciary should learn to make such decisions touching on monitory issues in consultation with all the stakeholders.