Ngome

Your site launched.
Is it a fortress or a target?

AI-generated code ships fast and breaks faster. No auth. No rate limiting. API keys in the frontend. Personal data exposed within hours of launch. We find every gap before someone else does — using the same convergence method that secures our own infrastructure.

Case Study — March 2026
Linda Mwananchi: hacked in hours, offline for days.

Senator Edwin Sifuna launched a political registration platform on March 13, 2026. Within hours, 7,000 Kenyans signed up. Within hours, it was also hacked — personal data leaked on social media, the site pulled offline, and volunteer IT experts flown in from London and Washington to fix it.

Timeline of failure

From launch to breach in under 24 hours

The platform collected names, phone numbers, emails, voter registration status, and KSh 10 M-Pesa payments. Screenshots of users' personal information appeared on social media the same day.

Friday 13 Mar
Site goes live. 5,500 signups within hours. No security review before launch.
Same Day
Cyber attacks hit. Personal data screenshots leak on social media. Site pulled offline.
Sat–Sun
Sifuna announces shutdown. Blames state actors. Calls for volunteer help from diaspora tech community.
Monday 16 Mar
IT experts from UK and US restore the site behind Cloudflare. Three days of downtime, unknown data exposure.

The real cost isn't technical. 7,000 citizens trusted a platform with their personal data, voter status, and payment information. That trust was broken on day one. The reputational damage to the Linda Mwananchi movement — regardless of who attacked it — is permanent for those 7,000 people. A pre-launch security audit costs a fraction of what this incident cost.

The Anatomy of a Breach
Six attack vectors. All preventable.

Whether this was a state-sponsored attack or opportunistic hacking doesn't matter. These vulnerabilities exist in every site launched without a security review. Here's what we look for.

Critical
Data exposure

Unprotected API endpoints returning user records. No authentication on admin routes. Database queries injectable via form inputs. Personal data accessible to anyone who knows the URL pattern.

We check: Every endpoint, every form, every API response. SQL injection, IDOR, broken access control — OWASP Top 10 full sweep.
Critical
No authentication layer

Sites built under time pressure often skip auth entirely or implement it client-side only. "It worked in dev" becomes "everyone can see everything" in production.

We check: Auth flow integrity, session management, token validation, privilege escalation paths, and whether auth can be bypassed entirely.
High
DDoS / traffic flood

No CDN. No rate limiting. No auto-scaling. A single-origin server handling registration, payment, and database queries — one traffic spike and it's over.

We check: Infrastructure topology, CDN configuration, rate limiting rules, origin protection, and capacity under load.
High
Secrets in the frontend

API keys, database credentials, payment gateway tokens — hardcoded in JavaScript files visible to anyone who opens browser dev tools. The #1 vibe-coding sin.

We check: Client-side source for leaked secrets, .env files accessible via URL, git history for committed credentials, third-party JS supply chain.
High
Payment data mishandling

Collecting M-Pesa payments alongside personal data without PCI compliance, data encryption at rest, or proper payment gateway integration. One breach exposes financial data.

We check: Payment flow isolation, data encryption, PCI-DSS compliance basics, M-Pesa/payment gateway integration security.
Medium
No monitoring or alerting

The team didn't know they were being attacked until screenshots appeared on social media. No logging, no anomaly detection, no real-time alerts.

We check: Logging coverage, alerting rules, uptime monitoring, and incident response readiness. You should know before Twitter does.
7,000
citizens' data exposed in the Linda Mwananchi breach
<24hrs
from Linda Mwananchi launch to data leak on social media
3 days
of downtime before foreign experts restored the site
6/6
attack vectors identified that were preventable pre-launch
How We Audit
Two paths to every vulnerability. If both agree, it's real.

We don't run a scanner and hand you a PDF. Our audits use convergent analysis — automated tools AND manual review independently examine the same surface. When both find the same issue, you can trust it. When they disagree, that's where the interesting vulnerabilities hide.

01 — Scope
Map your surface

Every endpoint, every form, every API route, every third-party integration. We build a complete inventory of what's exposed before testing anything.

02 — Converge
Automated + manual

Path A: automated scanning (OWASP ZAP, nuclei, custom scripts). Path B: manual penetration testing by a human. Two independent observers, same target.

03 — Diagnose
Severity + fix path

Every finding gets a severity rating, reproduction steps, and a specific fix. Not "you have a vulnerability" — "here's the exact line of code and here's the patch."

04 — Harden
We fix it with you

We don't just hand you a report and leave. We implement the critical fixes, verify the patches, and re-test. Your site launches hardened, not hopeful.

Deliverables
Not just a report. A hardened site.
Vulnerability Report

Every finding with severity, reproduction steps, affected endpoints, and recommended fix. Prioritised by blast radius — what can hurt you most, fixed first.

Hardening Implementation

We don't just find problems. Critical and high severity issues get fixed as part of the audit. You get pull requests, not just paragraphs.

Infrastructure Review

DNS, CDN, WAF, rate limiting, DDoS protection, origin shielding, TLS configuration. The boring stuff that stops you going offline.

Monitoring Setup

Uptime monitoring, error alerting, and anomaly detection so you know when something is wrong before your users tell you on Twitter.

Who This Is For
If you're launching something that matters, test it first.

Political campaigns

Registration platforms, donation sites, volunteer coordination. Collecting citizen data during elections makes you a target. 2027 is coming.

Startups & SMEs

MVP shipped by a vibe-coder or outsourced dev team. You don't know what's in the code. Neither did they.

Fintech & payments

M-Pesa integrations, lending platforms, savings apps. Financial data exposure isn't just embarrassing — it's criminal liability.

NGOs & civil society

Beneficiary data, health records, community surveys. The people you serve are often the most vulnerable to data exposure.

Government portals

Kenya's government websites were hacked in November 2025. Business Registration Service leaked presidential data in February. The pattern is clear.

Anyone using AI-generated code

Cursor, v0, Bolt, Lovable, Claude — they write functional code, not secure code. The gap between "it works" and "it's safe" is where breaches live.

Engagement
Simple. No hourly billing. No surprises.

Every engagement includes the vulnerability report, infrastructure review, and critical fixes. The only question is how deep you need us to go.

Pre-Launch

Security Audit

You're about to launch. You need to know what's exposed before the public does. Fast turnaround, focused on what matters most.

  • Full OWASP Top 10 assessment
  • Automated + manual convergent testing
  • Infrastructure and DNS review
  • Vulnerability report with fix priorities
  • Critical vulnerability patching
  • 48-hour turnaround available
Ongoing

Continuous Monitoring

For platforms that stay live — political campaigns, fintech, government portals. Monthly scans, real-time alerting, and incident response.

  • Monthly automated security scans
  • Quarterly manual penetration test
  • Real-time anomaly detection (CAAD)
  • Incident response on-call
  • Compliance reporting
  • Dedicated security contact

Don't be the next case study.

The Linda Mwananchi breach was preventable. Every pre-launch vulnerability is. Get your site audited before launch — or before it's too late.

Request an audit