If there is any federal government agency that must superintend its central processing unit, servers and control panel, it is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Otherwise, ahead of the fast approaching 2019 general elections which will the most technology driven election in Nigeria so far, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr Isa Pantami has called for fortification of all digital systems relating to the servers dedicated for the elections against hacking attacks.
In his presentation at the recent 10th annual conference organised by Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), Abuja Chapter, Dr. Pantami said “Efforts should be made to avoid system’s terror attacks capable of disrupting the national elections by hacking into the voter register database of the INEC.
He argued that “If proper IT security measures are not put in place, terrorists may disrupt the national elections by hacking into the INEC voter register database; they can disrupt the banking system by hacking into and taking over the Bank Verification Number (BVN) platform”.
“They can critically disrupt the national economy by cyber-jacking the Treasury Single Account (TSA) software, and so on.”
However, he was quick to aver that NITDA has developed national enterprise architecture capable of securing the country’s information technology systems with capabilities of proffering quick crisis control window for agencies in times of attacks.
Dr. Pantami revealed that “This section specifies what security measures should be in place while deploying IT systems in Public Institutions”.
