Two Kenyatta University students were arrested yesterday for hacking people's bank accounts, Francis Maina Wambui,26 was arrested alongside his colleague Zellic Alusa,25 during a raid by the DCI in the company of two other ladies.DCI reported that the gang has been hacking into people's credit cards through email phishing and using the money to buy bitcoin. The gang has its headquarters in Milimani, an upscale in Nakuru.Email phishing involves the use of emails as baits to steal cards and numbers, Five laptops,4 smartphones, two wifi gadgets, three hard drives, and assorted sim cards were recovered during the arrest. Just three days before the raid the Kenyan government launched a cyber forensic lab to curb the use of modern technology to conduct criminal activities. However, Kenya's cybercrime war has been weakened by a poor legal structure where prosecutors and judges struggle to understand sophisticated cyberattacks.
Last year a 22-year-old man was arrested in Bomet County for hacking 481 bank accounts and making away with $ 400,000.According to Kenya's computer misuse and cybercrime act, anyone found guilty of manipulating a payment system is jailed for only two years or pays a fine of $ 2000.Kenyan banks are losing over $ 121 million every year to fraudsters through identity theft according to a 2022 digital fraud report by Credit Reporting Agency, Trans Union.
