2023 Elections: We Recorded 12 Million Cyberattacks During Presidential Poll — FG

The federal government has disclosed that the 2023 presidential election was marred by about 12,988,978 cyberattacks from within and outside the country.

The information was revealed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, through his spokesperson, Uwa Sulaiman.

In a statement on Tuesday, Pantami shared that the series of hacking attempts recorded included Distributed Denial of Service, email and IPS attacks, SSH Login Attempts, Brute force Injection attempts, Path Traversal, Detection Evasion, and Forceful Browsing.

Per the statement, all parastatals have been directed by the minister to enhance their 24/7 monitoring of the networks and traffic for potential attacks from February 24, 2023, to February 27, 2023.

“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).

“In line with this mandate and in our efforts at supporting the initiatives of securing the Nigerian cyberspace, the parastatals under the supervision of the Ministry have established Cybersecurity Centers, namely, the National Information Technology (NITDA)’s Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), and Galaxy Backbone (GBB)’s Security Operations Centre (SOC).

“These Centers were established between 2020 and 2022 in line with the Honourable Minister’s policy directives and have been monitoring Nigerian cyberspace for potential threats and taking appropriate actions to mitigate them, both individually and collectively as well as in collaboration with other stakeholders.

“Generally, threats to public websites and portals averaged around 1,550,000 daily.

“However, this skyrocketed to 6,997,277 on Presidential Election Day.

“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.

“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 in this unprecedented success.", the statement reads.