Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami says in the run up to the 2023 General Elections, threat intelligence indicated that Nigeria’s cyberspace recorded astronomical increase in cyber threats.
According to a statement by Uwa Sulaiman, Spokesperson to the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, he said threats to public averaged around 1, 550,000 daily, this he said skyrocketed to 6, 997,277 on Presidential Election Day.
To mitigate the impact of the humongous attacks, the honourable minister, the statement said directed various relevant agencies of government to enhance 24/7 monitoring of the networks and traffic for potential attacks from 24th February 2023.
Recalled that the minister had inaugurated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure , chaired by the Board Chairman of NCC, NITDA and GBB as members, the Standing Committee has among other mandate monitoring of Telecommunication Infrastructure for the successful conduct of credible, free, fair and transparent elections.
It also has the designing procedures and using technologies to precent, detect, and respond to cyber- attacks, as well as developing the ability to recover from any damage that is done quickly, among others.
The statement however added that 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 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. The Honourable Minister commends all stakeholders in the digital economy ecosystem for their support that resulted into this this unprecedented success.
More importantly, the Honourable Minister notes that these attainments are as a result of the commitment of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR towards ensuring Nigeria’s successful transition into the digital economy. The digital economy sector has enjoyed continued support of the President and it is highly appreciated.
The statement said Prof Pantami also hopes that lessons learned during the process will be put to effective use in subsequent elections.