Editor's Review

“The technical team has ceased the matter which has since been contained even as we continue with further investigations."

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC¬) has cautioned its stakeholders against opening emails purporting to come from the human resource department.

In a statement on Wednesday, February 14, ODPC said that it was targeted in an email phishing incident on Tuesday, February 13.

The ODPC noted that its technical team contained the incident and further investigations have been launched.

“The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner was a target of a phishing incident involving an email account that was used to propagate malicious links to unsuspecting stakeholders on 13th February 2024.

“The technical team has ceased the matter which has since been contained even as we continue with further investigations. We therefore wish to caution all our stakeholders to avoid opening any suspicious mail purporting to be from our Human Resource Department,” read the statement in part.

File image of Kenya's Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait.

The ODPC also assured its stakeholders that the Phishing incident did not impact business operations.

“ We assure our stakeholders that business operations have not been impacted,” ODPC added.

Phishing is an online scam where scammers impersonate organizations to steal sensitive information, especially from clients.

In most cases, the scammers attach a link that appears to take customers to an organization's website to enter their information, however, the website is fake, and the information captured is sent directly to the scammers who then use it to open new accounts or invade the consumer’s existing accounts.