JKUAT Denies Hacking Claims, Cites System Upgrade for Portal Disruption
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) has issued a statement refuting widespread social media reports that its student portal was hacked. The university attributes the temporary disruption experienced by students to a planned system upgrade, not a security breach.
In a formal statement released by Robert Kinyua, the university's Deputy Vice Chancellor, JKUAT clarified that the brief unavailability of the student portal was a necessary step to integrate a new component. This integration is a direct result of the government's revised funding model, which mandates the inclusion of a "Student Household Fee" component within the existing system.
"This information is false," the statement emphatically declared. "All University systems and portals remain secure, and all student records and data are safe. The upgrade process required brief downtime to ensure accurate implementation. Notably, no student data or academic records were compromised during the outage."
The university assured the student body that the portal has since been fully restored and is now accessible, with all services functioning without any further disruption.
Student Portal Glitch Sparks Widespread Concern
The incident that triggered the social media frenzy occurred on Sunday, December 7, 2025. Students attempting to access the JKUAT portal found themselves facing alarming discrepancies. Fee balances appeared to have been wiped clean, registration records were conspicuously absent, and financial pages displayed only blank information.
Speaking anonymously to The Kenya Times, one affected student described the immediate alarm that swept through the student population. The student portal is considered the central repository for all academic and financial information, making any malfunction a cause for significant concern. For several hours, as visible balances inexplicably dropped to zero, many students feared a serious breach or a catastrophic data loss event.
The disruption became acutely apparent when students performing routine checks discovered that their fee statements had vanished. Accounts that previously indicated outstanding balances or pending payments showed no data whatsoever.
"Accounts that previously reflected arrears or pending payments showed no data at all," the student recounted. "Unit registration pages refused to load, and course verification sections only had empty fields."
Social Media Fuels Speculation Amidst System Failure
Within minutes of the discovery, screenshots of the erroneous portal displays began circulating rapidly across various social media platforms. This widespread sharing solidified the perception among students that the portal had suffered a complete and critical outage. The fact that the malfunction affected all account categories simultaneously fueled rapid speculation about a potential hack.
The JKUAT student portal plays a pivotal role in the academic administration of the university. It houses vital information including fee ledgers, registration records, clearance status, and crucial data regarding examination eligibility.
The timing of this system failure was particularly unfortunate, as it coincided with a critical period in the academic calendar. Many students needed to verify their fee balances urgently before commencing their end-of-semester examinations. Students who spoke to The Kenya Times expressed significant worry that the system glitch could jeopardize their eligibility to sit for exams or otherwise disrupt their scheduled assessments.
Addressing Misinformation and Restoring Confidence
Online discussions were dominated by speculation, with various theories emerging. Some students posited that the system had been compromised by external actors, while others suggested an internal error or a failed update process.
However, by midday, a sense of relief began to spread as some students who refreshed their portal sessions noticed their original balances starting to reappear. They reported that registration entries, which had previously vanished, were also returning to normal. This observation led many to believe that the malfunction was primarily a display-related issue, affecting the portal's ability to retrieve and present stored records from the underlying database, rather than a fundamental loss of data.
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