DSS uncovers APC’s plot to hack into INEC Database

The Department of State Services (DSS) has said that it has uncovered plans by the All Progressive Congress (APC) to hack into the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja, the Deputy Director, Public Relations, DSS, Marilyn Ogar said a video with tutorial for hacking was uncovered when the service raided a building in Lagos.

Ogar said the DSS also discovered lists containing names and photographs of security personnel, foreigners and minor/under-aged on the registered members list of the APC, Leadership reports.
She claimed that the APC filled forms without passport photographs, books containing names of people with phone numbers and many envelopes containing passport photographs of people were also recovered.

Displaying the lists and other items recovered from the building to newsmen, she explained that the confessions from the staff arrested at the APC office at 10,Bola Ajibola Street, Ikeja, and the items retrieved from the building showed that the party had an elaborate plan to hack into the commission’s database and inflate the number of its membership.

“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.

Speaking about the video of 21 hacking tutorials, 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 video explains how to hack into the systems of media houses with the aim of broadcasting fake stories or headlines.”

According to her, the video also outlined ways to identify vulnerabilities in systems and how to cleverly drop a USB flash drive in a target establishment.

Ogar alleged that the drive, when plugged into any commuter, could transmit “malicious codes enough to gain access into and compromise the entire system of the target organisation’’.
She said that suspects arrested in connection with the raid had been charged to court, while investigation had begun, while promising to keep the public updated on further developments.
It would be recalled that operatives of the service raided the building at No. 10, Bola Ajibola St., Ikeja, Lagos state, on Nov. 24, 2014, following a tip-off.