The Nigeria Computer Society has urged the Independent National Election Commission to prepare for cyberattacks after its results portal was attacked from Asia during the gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
The society said this during its press conference on its 2022 strategic review and 2023 information technology outlook.
He suggested a coalition security incident response team for future elections in the country, adding that the attempt to involve INEC in the matter has not borne any fruit.
NCS President Prof. Adesina Sodiya said in a paper presentation: “Recently, the INEC results portal was attacked from Asia during the Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial elections and this prompted NCS to suggest a Coalition of Team of Security Incident Response for future elections in Nigeria.
“Since NCS has been seen and perceived by all as non-partisan and free from government influence, NCS stands ready to help INEC use IT to resolve initial issues we faced during our election. We have written to INEC several times, but have not received a meaningful response from them. As we are going in electoral years, that is, 2023, we are free to help INEC to be among international observers”.
In September, INEC President Professor Mahmood Yakubu, while delivering a keynote address at a stakeholder conference on election results management, organized by Yiaga Africa, to launch the agenda of the Election Results Analysis Dashboard report, revealed that the commission’s results portal had been the victim of cyber-attacks by hackers.
He said: “Another technical concern for us is the repeated attempts to break our cyber security system for the portal. Our engineers reported several cyber attacks on the portal during the Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial elections. Some of them are from as far away as Asia. Glad to note that they all failed.
“However, while we are confident in the security solutions we have put in place for IReV and our entire web presence, we must remain vigilant and continue to strengthen our defenses. We have tasked our engineers to do everything possible to fully protect the IReV and all of our web resources.”
