Kisumu — ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo has assured that no government data was lost in the attempted hacking of the eCitizen portal.

Owalo said there are sufficient safeguard measures for the safety of the portal used by the government for the public to access various services and payments.

"There was a small incident where the system was temporarily interfered with," he said in Kisumu on Saturday, "but data was not interfered with. It is safe."

He said the government has a mitigation framework to guarantee the system's integrity.

The attack temporarily affected public access to over 5,000 government services on the eCitizen portal.

"We are back to optimal level capacity utilization on the eCitizen platform," he said at Ng'iya Girls High School in Siaya County when he opened a digital laboratory.

He announced that the government has put in place mitigation measures aimed at derailing any future attempts to attack the platform as the country continues to pursue its digitalization agenda.

The CS said that the government is committed to establishing and operationalizing a total of 1,450 digital laboratories across the country.

"For a start, we are targeting TVETs and High Schools with a preference to Girls schools," he said.

Owalo says the laboratories will give learners an opportunity to get empowerment through the digital platform.