Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Pantami warned that a recent surge in cyberattacks across Africa threatens the continent’s burgeoning digital economy. Citing the newly released *Africa Cybersecurity Report*, he noted that cyber‑attacks on the region rose by 300 percent in 2022. This increase is especially concerning given that the World Bank projects Africa’s digital economy to be worth $180 billion by 2025.
Pantami made these remarks on Tuesday during the opening ceremony of a two‑day cybersecurity stakeholder capacity‑building workshop in Abuja. The event was organized by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy in partnership with the World Bank. He urged businesses and organisations to take immediate steps to safeguard themselves against cyber threats.
He highlighted Nigeria’s own experience, stating that the country recorded 12.9 million cyber‑threats during the presidential elections and 3.8 million threats during the gubernatorial and state assembly elections. These incidents originated both domestically and internationally and included Distributed Denial of Service attacks, email and Internet Protocol spoofing, SSH login attempts, brute‑force injection attempts, path traversal, detection evasion, and forceful browsing.
Pantami described these statistics as alarming and emphasized the urgent need to protect Africa’s infrastructure and digital economy. He concluded that a robust cybersecurity strategy is essential to shield the continent’s digital infrastructure, businesses, and citizens.
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