“We Recorded Over 12.9Million Cyberattacks During Presidential Polls” – Federal Government

The federal government revealed that during the February 25 presidential and legislative elections, 12,988,978 cyberattacks were recorded in the country’s cyberspace.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Pantami, who revealed this, said that on election day alone, more than 6.9 million attacks were recorded.

Pantami said the attacks were successfully blocked due to the sophisticated infrastructure on the premises of various government agencies tasked with protecting the country’s cyberspace.

The Minister thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for creating a favorable environment for government agencies to carry out their duties without obstacles.

He said:-

“It is worth noting that in the run-up to the 2023 general elections, threat intelligence revealed an astronomical increase in cyber threats to Nigerian cyberspace.

“Generally, threats to public websites and portals averaged around 1,550,000 daily. However, this skyrocketed to 6,997,277 on presidential election day.

“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, Ppth 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.”