Gov Poll: FG blocked 3.8m cyberattacks

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has revealed that a total of 3,834,244 attacks originating within and outside Nigeria were blocked during the governorship and state assembly elections.

Pantami said the blockage was facilitated by cyberspace infrastructure put in place by the government to monitor activities in the nation’s cyberspace before, during and after the elections.

According to him, a standing Committee put together by the Federal Government with the mandate to secure the nation’s cyberspace consolidated its efforts as recorded during the presidential election to ensure that Nigeria’s cyberspace remained safe and secure.

The minister who spoke through a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Technical Matters, Dr Femi Adeluyi, on Wednesday, commended the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for the support and approvals of initiatives to promote the Digital Economy and cyber security.

The statement partly reads,” 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 cyber threat actors on Nigerian cyberspace during the governorship and State Assembly elections are much lower than those during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.”

Pantami further appreciated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure for the feat, asserting that Nigeria would continue to appreciate the cyberspace surveillance activities of the three cybersecurity Centres of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Nigerian Communications Commission and Galaxy Backbone Limited.

Explaining the disparities in the attacks compared to  previous elections, Pantami acknowledged that “Nigeria being Africa’s largest democracy, the Presidential and National Assembly elections are bound to attract much attention of everyone, including cyberthreat actors, then during the governorship and State Assembly elections.”