FG says over 12.9 million cyber attacks were recorded during last elections

The Federal Government has said that a total of 12,988,978 attacks were recorded on public websites and portals during the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami disclosed this in a statement by his media aide, Uwa Suleiman on Tuesday, March 14, 2023.

He said on election day alone, 6.9 million attacks were recorded, adding that the attacks originated from both within and outside the country.

According to him, the attacks were successfully blocked because of the sophisticated infrastructure on the ground by different agencies of government.

He said, “A total of 12,988,978 attacks were recorded, originating from both within and outside Nigeria. It is worth noting that the Centers successfully blocked these attacks and/or escalated them to the relevant institutions for appropriate action.

“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.

“The parastatals, under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, have played a crucial role in providing the enabling environment for the successful conduct of a credible, free, fair, and transparent election.”

He further disclosed that in the runup to the 2023 general elections, threat intelligence showed an astronomical increase in cyber threats to Nigerian cyberspace.

To curtail the activities of cyber criminals during the elections, he disclosed that a committee set up by his ministry worked from February 24, to February 28, 2023.