Nigeria was spared from cyber-attack that affected >150 countries – NITDA

Nigerian government through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has disclosed that the country was “largely spared” from WannaCry – a monumental ransomware attack that recently affected more than 150 countries.

NITDA’s DG and CEO, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, while speaking on Sunday said the WannaCry/WannaCript ransomware attack has been contained and Nigeria was largely spared from the attack.

He said the success story in Nigeria is attributable to” the massive enlightenment campaign, awareness and proactive measures put in place to swiftly deal with any reported incident”.

He added that the efforts of all stakeholders in the IT industry are highly commendable and appreciated. Globally, more than 200,000 people suffered attack which is one of the biggest in history.

He said: “Traces in Nigeria appeared to be isolated cases as no major incident is reported in the country. As IT systems have now become part of our lives, the need for all to be vigilant and proactive as far as security is concerned cannot be overemphasized. For users of Microsoft systems, the following steps are recommended:

“Old operating systems should be upgraded to the latest version ( of Windows 10). This will enable them get the latest protection from Microsoft;

“The recent security update released by Microsoft, MS17-010, should be installed as soon as possible; and

“Where necessary, Windows Defender Antivirus should be enabled as it helps in detecting this ransomware and similar attacks.”