A total of 3,834,244 cyber attacks were recorded before, during and after the 2023 Governorship and House of Assembly elections held last Saturday.
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, disclosed this in a statement by his Senior Technical Assistant (Research and Development), Dr Femi Adeluyi.
“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 election.
“Based on Honourable Minister’s directives, the Committee provided close oversight on the activities of the cybersecurity centres, from Friday, 17 March, 2023 to Monday, 20 March, 2023.”
The minister stated that, during the period, and as previously stated, a series of hacking attempts were recorded.
These, he said, included 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.
“A total of 3,834,244 attacks were recorded, originating from both within and outside Nigeria.
“Daily breakdown of these attacks are: Friday, 17 March, 2023 (1,046,896); Saturday, 18 March, 2023; (1,481,847); Sunday, 19 March, 2023; (327,718) and Monday, 20 March, 2023 (977,783).
“It is interesting to note that the activities of cyberthreat actors on the Nigerian cyberspace during the Governorship and State Assembly elections are 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 much attention of everyone, including cyberthreat actors, than during the Governorship and State Assembly elections.
“Furthermore, the Honourable Minister is confident that the implementation of some recommendations as well as measures taken to fortify our cyber defence mechanisms might have helped in this,” he added.
Pantami stated that the attainments recorded 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.”
He disclosed that the digital economy sector has enjoyed Mr President’s unprecedented support and it is highly appreciated.
