The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, has disclosed that Federal Government institutions under the ministry recorded a total of 3,834,244 attempts at cyber-attacks, originating from both within and outside Nigeria on daily basis before, during and after the 2023 governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections held on March 18, 2023.
A statement issued on Wednesday by Senior Technical Assistant (Research and Development) to the Minister,Dr. Femi Adeluyi, indicated thatthe three Cybersecurity Centres of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB) recorded the attacks.
A breakdown of the attacks indicated that on Friday, 17th March, 1,046,896 attacks were recorded; Saturday 18th March, 1,481,847 attacks were recorded; Sunday 19th March, 327,718 attacks were recorded and on Monday 20th March, 977,783 attacks were recorded.
It would be recalled that the Minister had earlier disclosed that before, during and after the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections that took place on Saturday, February 25, nearly 13 million attacks were averted by the government agencies on the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC).
In line with the Ministry’s mandate as well as in its efforts aimed at supporting the initiatives of securing the Nigerian cyberspace, Pantami directed the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure to further enhance the cyberspace surveillance activities of the three cybersecurity centres of NITDA, NCC and GBB.
The Committee, which was inaugurated by the Minister on the eve of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, was charged with monitoring of Telecommunication Infrastructure for the successful conduct of the 2023 General Elections; developing and implementing plans to enhance the resilience of critical digital infrastructure against cyber threats.
Others include; 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 Elections.
Following the 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, the statement said.
