INEC: Our result portal was attacked from Asia during Ekiti, Osun guber polls

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says its result viewing (IReV) portal has come under attack from hackers across the world.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said this while delivering a keynote address at a stakeholders’ conference on election result management on Friday in Abuja.

The conference was organised by YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), to launch the election result analysis dashboard (ERAD) report agenda.

Yakubu said the commission has recorded several attempts to hack the cyber security system of the result viewing portal.

“Another technical concern for us is the repeated attempts to break through our cyber security system for the portal,” he said.

“Our engineers reported several cyberattacks 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.

“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.”

Yakubu also stated that INEC is working to address other challenges which are administrative in nature.

“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.

“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.”

Asides from challenges, the INEC chairman noted that the commission has introduced new legal provisions, administrative procedures and technological innovations to improve election conduct in 2023.