Cyber Security: DSA Stops #EndSARS Protesters From Downing Govt., Military Websites

0
251
EndSARS

The Chief of Defense Space Administration, Rear Admiral WO Kayoda, has disclosed that his agency thwarted an attempt by #EndSARS protesters to attack and destroy government and military websites in the wake of the civil disobedience last October.

Kayoda made the disclosure when he received the Senate Committee on Defence led by the Chairman, Aliyu Wamakko in his office.

He told the lawmakers that it took the efforts of available expertise in his agency working closely with the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), and the National Intelligence Agency, NIA, to foil the attack on sensitive government websites.

“The cyber centre is doing a lot. In fact, during the EndSARS we were coming to work even on Saturdays and Sundays.

“Most of the government websites that the EndSARS attempted to pull down, we were actually monitoring and we made sure that they did not deactivate them, we kept them active especially the military websites, we got a commendation for that from the Office of the National Security Adviser.”

He said Nigerians should expect to see a lot of activities in the defence of the country’s space in the coming next days which will be aimed at tracking the activities of insurgents and bandits in parts of the Northwest and the North Central States.

He expressed optimism that the Nigerian Armed Forces will win the war against insurgency; pointing out that his agency is rock solid to provide the space surveillance Intelligence and tactics required to prosecute the war.

Fielding questions from the federal lawmakers, Kayoda lamented the paucity of funds which he said has greatly limited the operations of the space agency.

“Again, the challenge that we have is funding. Most of the subscriptions for those have expired.

“As we speak sir, on the 27th my subscription expired and I need 55, 000 dollars to pay for that subscription.

“Since I have not gotten capital. But we have found a way around it to ensure that those that gave it to us keep it running pending when we have funding to bring it up to date. That is why we asked for an intervention fund so that things of this nature we will quickly attend to it,” he said.

He called on the National Assembly to review the current overhead spending of the Defence Space Administration(CDA) which he puts at a paltry N180 million a year(roughly N15 million monthly.

” …The situation on ground as regard overhead has not changed.

” We complained bitterly about the issue of overhead. We get N180 million per annum, N15 million per month. That is grossly inadequate.

“From the N15million, we pay an average of N2.7 monthly on NEPA alone. We pay six million per subscription for the cyber centre. We really need our overhead to be improved,” he said.