Nigeria Recorded Over 1.4 million Cyber Attacks On 2023 Guber Elections Day- Pantami

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami on Wednesday disclosed that Nigeria recorded a total of 3,834,244 cyber-attacks before, during and after the gubernatorial election of March 18, 2023, out of which over 1.4million was recorded on election day.

In a release signed by Dr. Femi Adeluyi, Senior Technical Assistant (Research and Development) to the Honourable Minister, Prof. Pantami provided the breakdown of the attacks as follows:

“During this period and as previously reported, a series of hacking attempts were recorded, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), email and Internet Protocol Spoofing (IPS) attacks, SSH Login Attempts, Brute force Injection attempts, Path Traversal, Detection Evasion, and Forceful Browsing, originating from both within and outside Nigeria,” the Minister disclosed.

Recall that on March 14, 2023, the Office of the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy released a Press Statement regarding the activities of the Ministry and its parastatals before, during and after the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

“As a follow up to that and in line with the Ministry’s mandate as well as in our efforts aimed at supporting the initiatives of securing the Nigerian cyberspace, the Honourable Minister directed the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure to further enhance the cyberspace surveillance activities of the three cybersecurity Centres of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB),” the statement further read.

The statement disclosed that based on the Honourable Minister’s directives, the Committee provided close oversight on the activities of the cybersecurity Centres, from Friday 17th March 2023 to Monday 20th March 2023.

The statement further quoted the Minister as saying that the activities of cyber threat actors on Nigerian cyberspace during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections were much lower than those during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

“This is neither surprising nor unexpected as, Nigeria being Africa’s largest democracy, the Presidential and National Assembly elections are bound to attract more attention of everyone, including cyber threat actors, than during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections,” the Minister stated.

Recall also that the Committee, inaugurated by the Honourable Minister on the eve of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, was charged with the following responsibilities, among others:

• Monitoring of Telecommunication Infrastructure for the successful conduct of the 2023 General Elections;
• Developing and implementing plans to enhance the resilience of critical digital infrastructure against cyber threats;
• Designing procedures and using technologies to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks, as well as developing the ability to quickly recover from any damage that is done;
• Developing a comprehensive risk assessment, analysing the nation’s current cybersecurity capabilities, and identifying gaps that need to be addressed; and
• Providing professional advice to the Government on the effective utilisation of digital technologies in the conduct of the 2023 General Elections.

Prof. Pantami who expressed confidence that the implementation of some recommendations as well as measures taken to fortify Nigeria’s cyber defence mechanisms might have helped in this, reiterated that these attainments would not have been possible without the continued support of President Muhammadu Buhari, in particular, and the administration in general, towards ensuring Nigeria’s successful transition into the digital economy.