By Adedapo Adesanya
Over 200 cyber attacks were blocked and prevented during the presidential and National Assembly elections held on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
This claim was made by the Managing Director of a government-partnered firm, Galaxy Backbone (GBB), Mr Muhammad Abubakar, at the opening session of a two-day ministerial training for board members and management staff on Tuesday in Abuja.
He noted that this was to ensure that Nigeria’s infrastructure was not overwhelmed during the elections.
“On the election day alone, we were able to block more than 200 attacks, and the next day, the attacks geometrically increased to about 1.2 million, and all were blocked from our own businesses,” he said.
Mr Abubakar said a business continuity and cyberspace protection committee had been formed to guard and regulate digital activities while optimising the GBB’s technical services.
He said that the training was aimed at reviewing the agency’s performance while initiating alternative means of revenue generation.
On his part, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, said the training was aimed at evaluating and recalibrating Galaxy Backbone Limited in regard to management and leadership for optimal outputs.
Mr Pantami, who served as the training facilitator, applauded GBB’s approach to digital infrastructural development while saving the cost of governance.
“In this training, I will be very much sincere with you to point out some areas where we need significant improvement.
“Training is key when it comes to improving our performance, and at the same time, training is key when it comes to our self-evaluation, self-judgment, and self-assessment.
“We need to think out of the box to discover new areas for government revenue generation.
“We need to be proactive in our thinking, let us not maintain the same process every day when it comes to revenue generation,” he said.