Why cyber attacks declined by 70 percent during guber polls

By Chioma Obinagwam

Nigeria witnessed a 70.48 percent decline in cyber attacks to 3,834,244 in the run up to the 2023 Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections.

Confiance News gathered from a recent statement signed by the Senior Technical Assistant (Research and Development) to the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Femi Adeluyi.

Confiance News recalls that the 3,834,244 cyber attacks in the gubernatorial polls represented 9,154,734 or 70.48 percent decline in contrast with the 12,988,978 attacks recorded during the presidential polls.

“It is interesting to note that the activities of cyberthreat actors on the Nigerian cyberspace during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections are much lower than those during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

The Minister, however, explained that the implementation of some recommendations as well as measures taken to fortify the cyber defence mechanisms might have helped in the decline.

The statement showed that the Minister disclosed that the attacks included 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.

A breakdown of the 3,834,244 attacks which happened within four days spanning from March 17th to March 20th, 2023 showed that a 1,046,896 cyber attacks on Friday 17th March, 2023; 1,481,847 attacks was recorded on Saturday 18th March, 2023; Sunday 19th March, 2023 witnessed 327,718 attacks, even as 977,783 attacks were recorded on Monday 20th March, 2023.

“This is neither surprising nor unexpected as, Nigeria being Africa’s largest democracy, the Presidential and National Assembly elections are bound to attract much attention of everyone, including cyberthreat actors, than during the Gubernatorial and State Assembly elections,” he said.

The Minister reiterates that these attainments would not have been possible without the continued support of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR in particular, and the administration in general, towards ensuring Nigeria’s successful transition into the digital economy.