Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cyber-attacks on businesses and government organizations has grown, with the possibility of spillover cyber-attacks against non-primary targets becoming far more frequent.
This advisory was released by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Monday, May 16 2022.
The statement endorsed by NITDA-CERRT adds that there is a greater danger for countries doing business in or with these countries’ governments, as well as businesses or countries that apply sanctions or are believed to intervene.
“In this regard, the National Information Technology Development Agency’s Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (NITDA-CERRT) is urging all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to take extra security precautions by hardening their cyber defences and performing due diligence in identifying indicators of malicious activity that could affect their networks, assets, and critical national infrastructure.
“Therefore, MDAs are advised to use the following steps to prevent such attacks:
Carry out checks for possible vulnerabilities on their systems and implement appropriate remediations.
Always ensure software’s are updated.
Carry out regular patches on all systems.
Secure and monitor remote desktop protocol and other risky services.
Carry out awareness on cyber security best practices to sensitized employees and users of services.
Additionally, Organizations are invited to sign up for NITDA’s free web protection service, which will provide MDAs’ administrators with detailed information about the vulnerability of their web services.
A recent report by Kaspersky, compared to Q1 2021, the number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in Q1 2022 rose 4.5 times with a considerable number of the attacks likely to be the result of hacktivist activity.
For Further information and enquiries, contact the Head, NITDA-CERRT on cerrt@nitda.gov.ng, or call +2348178774580.