The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantermi, says the country recorded about seven million threats in the Nigerian cyberspace during the last presidential election.
Minister’s spokesperson, Uwa Sulaiman quoted him as revealing the huge cyber threat in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to the statement, the minister inform the public about the ministry’s efforts at ensuring safe and secured Nigeria’s cyberspace before, during and after the 2023 Presidential Elections.
“In the run-up to 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, this skyrocketed to 6,997,277 on the Presidential Election Day,” the statement quoted Pantami.
The ministry provided protection for Nigeria’s cyberspace to a level that citizens will have confidence in digital services.
“This mandate aligns with goals and objectives of National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a Digital Nigeria.”
Pantami said the parastatals under the ministry established three cybersecurity centres.
This is in line with the ministry’s mandate and its efforts at supporting the initiatives of securing the Nigerian cyberspace.
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“These centres were monitoring Nigerian cyberspace for potential threats and taking appropriate actions to mitigate them.”
The minister directed all the parastatals to enhance 24/7 monitoring of the networks and traffic for potential attacks from Feb. 24 to Feb. 27.
Furthermore, on Feb. 24 the minister inaugurated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure.
The committee is mandated to monitor Telecommunication Infrastructure for the successful conduct of credible, free, fair, and transparent elections
It is also to develop and implement plans to enhance resilience of critical digital infrastructure against cyber threats.
The committed also has mandate to design procedures and use technologies to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks and provide professional advice to the Federal Government on the effective utilisation of digital technologies during the 2023 General Elections.
“The Committee’s activity started on 24th February 2023 and ended on 28th February 2023.
“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.
“A total of 12,988,978 attacks were recorded, originating from both within and outside Nigeria.
“It is worth noting that the centres successfully blocked these attacks and/or escalated them to the relevant institutions for appropriate action,” the statement read in part.
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