How Nigerian Government Countered Over 1.2m Cyber Attacks During 2023 Elections

The Nigeria Information Technology and Shared Services provider, Galaxy Backbone Limited, says it countered over 1.2 million attempted cyber attacks during the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections on the 25th of February.

According to its Managing Director, Muhammad Abubakar, during a ministerial training for its Board members and Management Staff in Abuja with the theme: “positioning the Agency’s Team for Effective Management and Leadership in the 4th Industrial Revolution,” the centre recorded more than 200 cyberattacks on election day, with that number sporadically increasing to 1.2 million the following day while collation was going on.

This was amidst the widespread failures and challenges encountered by the IReV, which resulted in its ability to transmit the presidential election results online, forcing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit the results offline to its portal for viewers to access just as the elections came to a close. “Because of the elections, we came up with a business community and Cyberspace protection that is supposed to run for one month and at least one week after the Gubernatorial elections. On election day alone, cyber-attacks cost $4b and how did we get to that, We have a reference, a single cyber attack cost $18,000 as of December 2023,”

During the elections we countered more than 200 hundred attempted attacks And the next day it geometrically increased to about 1.2 million and all were blocked from our own end He said

However, the Managing Director did not disclose if the IReV infrastructure’s whole or partial downtime was caused by the cyberattacks or the numerous efforts it repelled.

Nonetheless, he pointed out that the agency established a business community and Cyberspace protection committee to ensure Nigeria’s cyberspace is secure for the 2023 general election while acknowledging its accomplishments.

In his remarks, the Minster of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami said that the training evaluated and recalibrated Galaxy Blackbone LImited regarding Leadership and Management for optimal outputs.

“Training is key when it comes to improving our performance, and at the same time, training is key when it comes to our self-evaluation, self-judgement, and self-assessment”, the minister said

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