The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, has declared that 3.8m cyberattacks were recorded during the just concluded governorship and Houses of Assembly elections in Nigeria.
Pantami disclosed this via a statement issued on Wednesday by his Senior Technical Assistant on Research and Development, Femi Adeluyi.
Adeluyi noted that the cyberattacks, which originated from both within and outside Nigeria, were discovered by a committee constituted by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy on the eve of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.
Giving a breakdown of the cyberattacks, the minister’s aide noted that 1,046,896 attacks were recorded on Friday, March 17; 1,481,847 on Saturday, March 18; 327,718 on Sunday, March 19; while 977,783 attacks were recorded on Monday, March 20, 2023.
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He stated: “Based on 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.
“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. A total of 3,834,244 attacks were recorded, originating from both within and outside Nigeria. Daily breakdown of these attacks are:
“Friday 17th March 2023: 1,046,896; Saturday 18th March 2023: 1,481,847; Sunday 19th March 2023: 327,718; Monday 20th March 2023: 977,783.
“It is interesting to note that the activities of cyberthreat actors on the Nigerian cyberspace during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections are much lower than those during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.”
Adeluyi further stated that the cyberattacks recorded during the gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections were lower than the attacks recorded in the presidential and National Assembly polls, adding that the implementation of some recommendations and measures taken to fortify Nigeria’s cyber defence mechanisms helped to reduce the attacks.
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