₦airaland Forum

Nigerian Population Commission Website Unsafe, Redirects Visitors to Foreign Gambling Site

The website of the (NPC), National Population Commission, the custodian of Nigeria’s population statistics, is unsafe and currently redirects visitors to an Australian betting site.

On Saturday, FIJ found that the NPC website’s Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate had expired since April 22.

Upon visiting the page, a prompt reads that attackers could steal users’ vital information.

“Attackers might be trying to steal your information from nationalpopulation.gov.ng (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards),” the warning reads.


SSL Shopper showed that it’s been 46 days since the website’s security certificate expired.

Also, FIJ discovered that the Rapid SMS Page on the website redirects visitors to PayID Pokes, an Australian casino betting platform.

An archived page of RapidSMS from 2016 showed that the original page was to provide real-time information on health and development projects across Nigeria using short messaging services.

“RapidSMS is a data tracking tool that collects and collates real-time information using Short Messaging System (SMS) or text messaging for practical analyses, which enables expedited informed decisions, consensus building and response,” the page reads in part.

This project was launched in January 2011, and it was meant to ensure instant birth registrations across all local government areas in Nigeria.

On the other hand, the hacked page provides extensive details about Australian casino games.

“The introduction of PayID pokies transformed internet betting in Australia by providing an easy way of playing real money games that are secure,” the page reads in part.

BIRTH AND DEATH CERTIFICATES CAN BE MANIPULATED BY HACKERS

The compromise of the NPC’s website puts vital statistics and population policy at risk, as the agency plays a crucial role in census planning, birth and death registration, and demographic analysis.

Also, the expired SSL certificate makes the site vulnerable and could be exploited to host malicious software or redirect users to more dangerous sites.

The presence of a betting page from a foreign gambling company further indicates that a portion of the NPC’s web pages may have been hacked or left open to unauthorised edits.

This implies that important data like birth certificate applications, death certificate data, national census data and other statistics on the website are vulnerable and can be manipulated by hackers.

https://fij.ng/article/spotted-npc-website-unsafe-redirects-visitors-to-foreign-gambling-site/

Mynd44 Lalasticlala Nlfpmod

Imagine !...so the government is betting with our info?

Na 20 million dollars them go use renew their ssl certificate. Just dey watch 😁

Septagon:
Imagine !...so the government is betting with our info?

Na una hack am..na una dey report am

They need to renew their subscription. Sharp person suppose go pay for am make dem rescue am with settlement. Lol. Their IT person probably got the job through the fence.

2mch:
They need to renew their subscription. Sharp person suppose go pay for am make dem rescue am with settlement. Lol. Their IT person probably got the job through the fence.

It might have little or nothing to do with the IT person or company handling it, sometimes because of the corrupt people in charge of these agencies or commissions who are all too busy looking for the next money to steal forget what they were actually employed to do or even unwilling to do anything because they need fresh over budgeted funds to execute this particular fix.

You will be so surprised that they know this thing is down but are waiting for the FG to release more than 100 million to correct it which they may have written to the FG about and if the money doesn't come they won't even bother themselves, so the IT guys are also handicapped in such situation if the IT guys try to do anything to fix it they may lose their job or contract immediately.

Sadly that issue you are seeing there can actually be fixed for free, any good IT guy who works on severs knows exactly what to do within minutes without costing you a dime, except they have a special subscription for the SSL certificate, the SSL certificate can either be gotten for free or paid which is different from the server subscription, sadly most of these government agencies don't pay the actual IT guys as much as the agents or insiders who bring the job, I'm talking from experience.

Nigerians and weird maintainance culture .

It is finished! Nigeria has done another one.

loffyloffy:
Na una hack am..na una dey report am

You didn't read that the SSL has expired. Is the expiration not negligence rather than oversight?

On Saturday, FIJ found that the NPC website’s Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate had expired since April 22.

A whole National population commission inukwa