The Federal Government of Nigeria has revealed that a total of 12,988,978 cyber attacks were recorded during the just concluded 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections in the country.
Prof. Isa Pantami who is the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, made this disclosure in a statement, on Wednesday clarifying that the attacks originated from both within and outside Nigeria. He said threats to public websites and portals averaged around 1,550,000 daily.
According to him, the attacks skyrocketed to 6,997,277 on the presidential and National Assembly elections day.
The minister said in the run-up to the 2023 general elections, threat intelligence revealed an astronomical increase in cyber threats to Nigerian cyberspace.
‘It is worth noting that in the run-up to the 2023 general elections, threat intelligence revealed an astronomical increase in cyber threats to Nigerian cyberspace. Generally, threats to public websites and portals averaged around 1,550,000 daily. However, they skyrocketed to 6,997,277 on the elections days,’ Pantami said.
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He said a committee set up by his ministry to curtail the activities of cyber criminals during the elections started work on February 24 and ended work on February 28.
‘During this period, a series of hacking attempts were recorded, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), email and IPS attacks, SSH Login Attempts, Brute force Injection attempts, Path Traversal, Detection Evasion, and Forceful Browsing.
‘It is worth noting that the centers successfully blocked these attacks and escalated them to the relevant institutions for appropriate action,‘ he said.
Africa Today News, New York reports that on February 24, the minister inaugurated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Nigerians will on Saturday head to the polls again, this time to elect state governors for their respective states across the federation.