NITDA Advises Nigerians of Impending Cyber Attack 

The numerous reports of hackers stealing the data of more than 500 million WhatsApp users in an attack have prompted the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to issue an advisory warning to Nigerians on the threat of Cyber Attackers making use of the stolen data to carry out malicious activities, putting users at risk.

According to a Tweet by Cybernews, Those responsible for the Hacking recently posted an ad in a hacking community forum to sell the data of over 500 million WhatsApp users, including their mobile numbers. The report stated that the WhatsApp data was probably obtained using web scraping or web harvesting.

NITDA advice to Nigerians on Whatsapp usage

Reacting to the data breach, Umar, a NITDA spokesperson in a tweet revealed that the alleged leak involved nine million contacts from Nigeria.

“There are over nine million WhatsApp users in Nigeria and Such information could be used to perpetrate cyber-attacks such as smishing and vishing.” According to the statement issued by NITDA.

It explained, “Smishing involves sending unsuspecting users test message(s) and asking them to click on links or provide personal information which can be used to scam victims or to launch other attacks.

It explained that vishing, on the other hand, entails the use of phone calls or voice messages by cyber criminals to manipulate or deceive unsuspecting recipients into revealing or giving out sensitive information, which could be used to carry out fraudulent acts.