The Federal Government through the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has revealed that a total of 12,988,978 attacks originating within and outside Nigeria were recorded during the presidential election.
According to Pantami, no fewer than 1,550,000 threats to public websites and portals were recorded daily, adding that the figures skyrocketed to 6,997,277 on presidential election day.
A statement on Tuesday by the spokesperson for the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Uwa Sulaiman, noted that during this period, series of hacking attempts were recorded, including Distributed Denial of Service, email and IPS attacks, SSH Login Attempts, Brute force Injection attempts, Path Traversal, Detection Evasion, and Forceful Browsing.
The statement noted that the minister had directed all the parastatals to enhance their 24/7 monitoring of the networks and traffic for potential attacks from 24th February 2023 to 27th February 2023, adding that on 24th February 2023, Pantami inaugurated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure.
The statement partly read, “As part of its mandate, the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is expected to ensure adequate protection of Nigeria’s cyberspace to a level that citizens will have confidence in digital services. This mandate aligns with the goals and objectives of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria (NDEPS).
The committee was further charged to develop a comprehensive risk assessment, analyse the nation’s current cybersecurity capabilities, and identify gaps that need to be addressed while providing professional advice to the government on the effective utilisation of digital technologies in the conduct of the 2023 general elections.
Pantami also commended parastatals, under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, for their crucial role in providing the enabling environment for the successful conduct of the election.
