The Nigerian Army has reported an attempted unauthorised takeover of its official X account, becoming the second Nigerian military institution to disclose a cyber incident involving its social media platform in about two weeks.
The Army’s X account began posting updates related to memecoins at about 3.50pm on Saturday before the activity was identified as a cybersecurity incident.
The Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Appolonia Anele, confirmed the incident in a statement published on the Army’s official Facebook page.
“The Nigerian Army has detected and is actively responding to an attempted unauthorised access to its official X (formerly Twitter) account,” Ms Anele said.
She said the Army had immediately activated technical and protective measures to secure the account, prevent further unauthorised access and safeguard the integrity of information shared through the platform.
“The Nigerian Army assures members of the public, the media and other stakeholders that appropriate measures are underway to fully secure the affected account and restore exclusive administrative control,” she said.
The Army advised members of the public to disregard any suspicious, unauthorised, misleading or unverified material published through the affected account.
It also urged members of the public and media organisations to verify information through its other official communication channels until the matter is resolved.
It was unclear whether the Army had fully recovered control of the account at the time of the announcement, as the most recent visible post on the page pre-dated the reported incident.
The development comes about two weeks after the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) announced that its official X account had been compromised in a cyberattack.
In a statement issued on 15 August, the Director of Defence Information, Samaila Uba, said the DHQ had taken appropriate technical steps to secure its account and prevent further unauthorised access.
