The Federal Government has said Nigeria recorded a total of 12.9 million cyber-attacks from within and outside the country during the just-concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25 across the country.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, who announced this yesterday in Abuja, said on Election Day alone, the nation recorded over 6.9 million attacks.

The minister said the attacks were successfully blocked with sophisticated infrastructure put in place by different government agencies responsible for protecting the nation’s cyberspace.

He hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for providing the enabling environment which made it possible for government agencies responsible for conducting free, fair and credible elections did their assignments without let or hindrances.

In a statement by his media aide, Uwa Suleiman, the minister recalled that in the build-up to this year’s presidential and National Assembly polls on February 25, threat intelligence revealed astronomical increase in cyber threats to Nigeria cyberspace.

Providing details of the cyberattacks, Pantami said: “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 minister also recalled that on Election Day alone, the nation recorded 6,997,277 attacks, saying this was a far cry from an average daily attacks to public websites and portals, which stood at 1,550,000 before the elections.

Pantami praised cybersecurity centres, established under his ministry, namely: the National Information Technology’s (NITDA’s) Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT); the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC’s) Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT); and Galaxy Backbone’s (GBB’s) Security Operations Centres (SOC) for a job well done.

“These centres 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, individually and collectively, as well as in collaboration with other stakeholders,” he said.

Pantami also hailed the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure for keeping vigil from February 24 to the Election Day.