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Breaches/International/File 25-1019

Nigeria Reported 23.2 Million Attempted Cyberattacks in 2025

Nigeria was reported to have faced 23,268,560 attempted cyberattacks in 2025. The central bank’s statement about which sector was targeted is worth more than the figure.

Constructed geometry · not a chart of case data
JurisdictionNigeriathe affected organisation’s jurisdiction, not the actor’s suspected origin
TargetNigerian organisations
ActorMultiple
D. Kennedy11 min readConfidence: low2 sources reviewed

Nigeria was reported to have faced 23,268,560 attempted cyberattacks during 2025, with the Central Bank of Nigeria confirming that the banking sector remained the principal target, particularly through ransomware and phishing.

A Precise Attempt Count Is A Precise Measure Of Nothing

Twenty-three million with the final digits specified conveys authority the underlying measurement cannot support. An "attempted attack" is generally a blocked connection, a scan, or a signature match — automated background traffic that reaches every internet-facing organisation on earth.

This desk applied the same discount to 2,640 weekly attacks in Latin America at 25-1115. The figure describes what a sensor logged, and its precision is an artefact of counting rather than evidence of accuracy.

The Central Bank Statement Is The Actual Finding

A national central bank stating that its banking sector is the primary target, by named technique, is a supervisory observation from an institution with visibility into its own regulated population and no product to sell.

That is closer in kind to the healthcare register at 25-0630 and the financial sector reporting at 25-0616 — data produced because somebody is compelled to look, rather than because somebody is selling a sensor.

Graded Low, And The Grade Is About The Headline

The 23 million figure should not be quoted. The sector observation is more reliable and gets almost none of the attention.

That inversion — the unreliable number leading and the reliable one buried — is a pattern this corpus has recorded at 25-0208, 25-1230 and 25-0423, and it is not specific to any region.

How we reported this

Compiled from published regional reporting, listed below. The attempt figure is as reported and its methodology is not published. Corrections: corrections@forensicpost.com.

Sources
  1. Top 10 largest cyber-attacks in Africa 2025African Exponent
  2. Africa’s cybersecurity attacks outpace prevention as damage becomes harder to hideSecurity Africa Magazine
D. Kennedy
Identity and access reporter. Former DFIR consultant. Signal on request.
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