Anonymous Sudan attacks Nigeria's digital infrastructure over Niger involvement.
Nigeria's recent involvement in Niger's political crisis has drawn the attention of the notorious hacktivist group, Anonymous Sudan. The group openly admitted to initiating a series of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on Nigeria's digital infrastructure.
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), a government agency, confirmed the allegations in a press statement. They disclosed that the hacktivist group, known for politically and religiously motivated cyber campaigns, poses a significant risk to Nigeria's critical information infrastructure. The NITDA highlighted the group's tactics, which include targeted attacks on government digital services, particularly using DDoS attacks, with a history of successful attacks in other countries.
Although the NITDA did not explicitly name the group behind the attacks, Technext's investigation pointed to Anonymous Sudan as the culprit. The group shared updates on the disruption of services by MTN, a popular telecom company, through its private Telegram channel. Several MTN customers reported poor network reception, with some considering switching to rival telcos Glo and Airtel due to the service disruptions.
Anonymous The ongoing turmoil in Niger is related to the reasons behind the attacks in Sudan. On July 26, General Abdourahmane Tchiani staged a coup that was successful in toppling President Mohamed Bazoum's democratically elected administration. The rationale given by Anonymous for their attack on Nigeria was that Nigeria has been aggressively attempting to restore civilian rule in Niger and has even cut off the nation's energy supply.Nigeria's President, Bola Tinubu, leads the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to which Niger belongs. Nigeria's involvement in the crisis is understandable given the strong ties between the two countries.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari had made controversial decisions, including a rail project to Niger and the purchase of vehicles worth N1.4 billion for the Nigerien government. All ministries, departments, and agencies are advised by the NITDA to set up DDoS monitoring systems, purchase DDoS protection features, and set up hardware such firewalls to block DNS responses from outside the network. To safeguard their systems from additional threats, private organizations, including telecom operators, are urged to implement similar security measures. Authorities are on high alert because it is unclear when these attacks will stop or which system may be the next one to be attacked.
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