Nigeria records over 3.8 million cyberattacks during Gubernatorial and State Assembly Elections

The Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure has revealed that a total of 3,834,244 attacks were recorded in four days during the just concluded Gubernatorial and State Assembly Elections.

In a statement signed by Dr. Femi Adeluyi, Senior Technical Assistant (Research and Development) to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, the attacks started on Friday 17^th March 2023 to Monday 20^th March 2023.

According to the statement, the attacks, which originating from both within and outside Nigeria include 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 Daily breakdown of these attacks are:

1. Friday 17^th March 2023: 1,046,896
2. Saturday 18^th March 2023: 1,481,847
3. Sunday 19^th March 2023:    327,718
4. Monday 20^th March 2023:    977,783

Recall that the office of the Minister had after the Presidential and National Assembly elections released a statement where it noted that Nigeria recorded over 12,988,978 million in four days.

Read also: Cybersecurity expert asks Pantami to breakdown claim of 12.99 million cyberattacks in four days…… https://itpulse.com.ng/2023/03/16/cybersecurity-expert-asks-pantami-to-breakdown-claim-of-12-99-million-cyberattacks-in-four-days/

The Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure was set by the Minister to further enhance the cyberspace surveillance activities of the three cybersecurity Centres of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB).

The Committee, inaugurated by the Minister on the eve of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, was charged with the following responsibilities, among others:

1. monitoring of Telecommunication Infrastructure for the successful conduct of the 2023 General Elections;
2. developing and implementing plans to enhance the resilience of critical digital infrastructure against cyber threats;
3. 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;
4. developing a comprehensive risk assessment, analysing the nation’s current cybersecurity capabilities, and identifying gaps that need to be addressed; and
5. providing professional advice to the Government on the effective utilisation of digital technologies in the conduct of the 2023 General Elections.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that the activities of cyber threat actors on Nigerian cyberspace during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections are much lower than those during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

This is neither surprising nor unexpected as, Nigeria being Africa’s largest democracy, the Presidential and National Assembly elections are bound to attract more attention of everyone, including cyber threat actors, than during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections.

It is also possible that the implementation of some recommendations as well as measures taken to fortify the country’s cyber defense mechanisms might have helped in this.