Glitch hits CBN website in apparent cyberattack

A glitch hit the website of Nigeria’s central bank Friday in an apparent cyberattack, which made it go on and off intermittently.

Hackers collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attack in the continuation of the takedown of Nigerian Government-owned social media accounts and websites.

The hackers said the series of attacks on government-owned websites were to support the widespread protests against police brutality in Nigeria.

#Nigeria: International hackers & Anonymous continue the cyber campaign against the government to call out corruption, demand police reform, and show solidarity with brave protestors. #OpNigeria #EndSARS #EndPoliceBrutality #ReformTheNigerianPolice https://t.co/EjVT4q6VLt

— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) October 16, 2020

“International hackers & Anonymous continue the cyber campaign against the government to call out corruption, demand police reform, and show solidarity with brave protestors,” the group said on one of its Twitter handles, quoting a tweet by a certain Lorian Synaro.

Synaro boasted that the website “will be down again” after it became following the initial takedown.

The attack on CBN’s website is the group’s most audacious move yet since it launched its Nigerian operations on Wednesday.

Since then, the website of the National Industrial Court has been hacked, confidential SARS information and details of hundreds of contracts awarded by the Edo State Government leaked, and the Twitter handle of the National Broadcasting Commission hacked.

Earlier on Friday, National Information Technology Development Agency’s official Twitter handle retweeted a message by Galaxy Backbone, an Internet service provider in Nigeria, advising all government ministries, departments and agencies to enable two-factor authentication on their Twitter accounts to limit chances of being hacked.

NITDA later in the day tweeted an instruction on how to enable the two-factor authentication.