The Department of State Services (DSS) has said revealed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had planned to hack into the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Deputy Director, Public Relations, DSS, Marilyn Ogar, made the revelation on Wednesday, January 7, 2014 at a press conference in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
She explained that the finding was as a result of confessions by a staff arrested at the APC office at 10, Bola Ajibola Street, Ikeja, Lagos, with items recovered showing that the opposition had drawn up plans to hack into the electoral body’s data base and inflate its membership.
Ogar also revealed that a video tutorial on hacking was discovered, along with several Temporary Voter Cards (TVC) and Permanent Voter Cards (PVC).
According to Ogar: “We suspect that there was an elaborate and well articulated plan to inflate the party’s membership data as well as hack into INEC’s voter registration database.”
She said this was done by creating party membership forms and cards to match INEC’s voter register around the country.
Ogar availed that a video of 21 hacking tutorials were also recovered.
She said: “The tutorial video focused on the following areas: How to become a hacker and steps to take to avoid detection in the process of hacking web services. Steps and procedures of system hacking, passwords cracking, decrypting, escalating access privileges and creating backdoors to servers.”
The spokesperson also explained that the tutorial gave clear instructions on evading security like “Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), firewalls and other measures put in place to deter backers.
“The video explains how to hack into the systems of media houses with the aim of broadcasting fake stories or headlines,’’ she added.
