All eyes are on Nigeria as it heads to the polls next month. The 2023 general elections would be the first time the country would be transmitting election results electronically. Laudable as this idea may be, it comes with an attendant threat- cyberattacks.

According to SUPERS.ng findings, The dust on the Ekiti and Osun States’ elections had not settled when the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, revealed that both elections had been subjects of cyberattacks from across the world.

He said, “Another technical concern for us is the repeated attempts to break through our cyber security system for the portal. Our engineers reported several cyberattacks on the portal during the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, some of them from as far as Asia. I am glad to note that all of them failed.”

While the hackers were not successful, they raised new questions regarding the election process in Nigeria. The country is not alien to questions concerning the credibility of its electioneering process. The country’s electioneering process could be likened to the wild-wild West, characterised by violence, ballot snatching, vote buying, etc.

The worsening security situation observed by SUPERS.ng and widespread violence give Nigerians reasons to be worried as the February 25 and March 11 dates for the elections draw closer. Nigerians would fear the possibility of many things during the 2023 elections, but the introduction of electronic transmission of eliminates the fear of a random person snatching the ballot box.

Echoing this sentiment, the INEC Administrative Secretary in Kaduna State, Muhammed Mashi, recently said, “With the new electoral reform Nigerians will be surprised and happy to see what will happen in the 2023 election because it will be smooth and transparent, free and fair. Issue of ballot stuffing and snatching will not happen, and no voter can vote twice.”

This is because, in 2022, Nigeria signed its Electoral Act into law, ushering in an era of electronic transmission of results, which is political pundits would engender transparency in the process. The Act is expected to curtail some of the discrepancies associated with the country’s elections, SUPERS.ng Learnt.

Commending the passage of the Act, the Deputy Governor of Oyo State, Bayo Lawal, said, “Gone are the days of ballot box snatching, which is quite significant. Sanity is being introduced now because parties must work hard to make sure their candidates win the election as there is no magic. As you get accredited, you vote and your votes will count and that is the hallmark of electoral transparency.”

SUPERS.ng findings show that Expectations are high and many consider the 2023 general elections a litmus test for the 2022 Electoral Act. While the Act has solved some problems with the country’s electioneering process, it has also raised new questions.

The adoption of some form of digitisation for the forthcoming general elections opens the process up for cyberattacks. Cyberattacks have risen tremendously in recent years.

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In 2022, the Nigerian Communications Commission tracked many cyber threats and issued advisories through its Centre for Computer Security Incident Response.

According to the NCC, Nigeria loses $500m to cyberattacks yearly.

Recently, the Senior Manager of Cyber Risk Services at Deloitte, Ms Funmilola Odumuboni, said a cyberattack occurs every 39 seconds, and cybercrimes increased by nearly 300 per cent since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, Microsoft warned that a Russian military intelligence unit that attacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was back, in preparation for the US 2020 elections.

While there have not been any documented cases of election tampering in the US as a result of a cyberattack, there have been documented cases of successful election hacks that gained access to some election infrastructure.

INEC seems to be conscious of this and has devoted part of its N117bn electoral technologies budget to cyber security systems to ward off attacks.

The INEC chairman said, “We have tasked our engineers to do everything possible to fully protect the IReV and all our web resources.”

The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, added, “All servers anywhere in the world are susceptible to attacks by errant forces looking for whom to devour. Therefore, hacking attempts are not exclusive to INEC.

“The commission has and is very proud of its in-house computer engineers who designed the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and the INEC Result Viewing Portal. They have not been sleeping; they know what is at stake and they are always prepared.

“Therefore, hackers can only try. They cannot outsmart the commission. They will only end up getting a bloodied nose. This was one of the reasons why the commission introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the 2023 general election.”

Despite this, the Nigeria Computer Society recently asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to prepare for cyberattacks during the 2023 elections.

Questions have been asked about the country’s readiness for the electronic transmission of results due to the availability/unavailability of network coverage.

Chairman, Mobile Software Solution, Chris Uwaje, a cyber solutions expert, claimed it was impossible for anyone to judge INEC’s cyber readiness from the outside.

https://supers.ng/how-inec-can-prevent-cyberattacks/