THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said its result viewing (IReV) portal was attacked by hackers during the recent governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
“Another technical concern for us is the repeated attempts to break through our cyber security system for the portal,” INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu said today.
“Our engineers reported several cyber attacks 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.”
Yakubu, who spoke at a stakeholders conference organised by YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), to launch the election result analysis dashboard (ERAD) report agenda, said although the commission was confident of its cyber-security defences, there was a need to remain vigilant.
He promised that INEC would take adequate steps to correct some of the administrative lapses that occurred during the last two polls before the 2023 general elections.
“However, while we are confident in the security solutions that we have deployed for IReV and all our web presence, we must remain vigilant and continue to strengthen our defences. We have tasked our engineers to do everything possible to fully protect the IReV and all our web resources.
“For example, we found that some of the low-quality uploads that occurred in the field, which some of the observers have also noted, were due to the unavailability or substitution of presiding officers that were trained prior to the elections,” he said.
The INEC chairman added: “We shall administratively deal with this challenge and ensure that only adequately trained Presiding Officers are deployed for elections.
“Also, more hands-on training may be required to ensure that all those involved throughout the value chain of the IReV are fully ready for what is bound to be a major outing during the 2023 general election.”
