FIJ’s website was hit by cyberattacks traced to NIMC headquarters, days after it exposed illegal sales of Nigerians’ NIN data.
The Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) has reported a series of cyberattacks on its website, traced to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) headquarters in Abuja. According to FIJ’s web team, its service provider first detected the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which briefly knocked the platform offline on Thursday morning.
FIJ said a single IP address launched over 50,000 requests within an hour, highlighting the scale and sophistication of the assault. DDoS attacks overwhelm websites with fake traffic, preventing legitimate access and often causing server crashes.
The attack occurred just days after FIJ published multiple investigations exposing how companies and individuals illegally sold Nigerians’ National Identification Number (NIN) data on the black market. “It is clear this was a targeted attempt to silence our reporting,” FIJ noted.
The outlet had recently revealed unlicensed platforms such as NINPrint, NINCard, nimcverify.ng, and IloTech, with each shut down shortly after publication.