NIMC Dismisses Claims of  Data Breach

NIMC, National Identity Management Commission, has refuted the claim that its databases were exposed due to the damaged undersea cable. The telecommunications services were affected by this damage, which in turn affected banks and other service providers in the country.

The commission refuted the claim due to a rumor that was causing Nigerians to panic about their private information being in the hands of scammers. 

Data Breach Caused By Damaged Undersea Cable 

The rumor alleged that a private company by the name of XpressVerify had access to the pieces of information of millions of Nigerians. The company was believed to have access to this information through the NIMC to provide NIN verification services. 

NIMC Reaction To The Alleged Data Breach

NIMC had vehemently refuted these claims and assured Nigerians of its plain operations and that the commission only works with licensed private organizations, of which XpressVerify wasn’t one. 

“The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) received with concern news from some sections of the media about an alleged breach of citizens’ data by a private organization, XpressVerify. The Commission wishes to state that it offers NIN verification and other services through licensed partners. However,  XpressVerify is not one of the Commission’s licensed partners.” the commission said.

The Director-General of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, ordered a thorough investigation into the issue to find out if any of the Commission’s tokenization verification agents have in any way violated the licensing agreement, either directly or through any of their sub-licenses.

“Top-level security is in place to protect the NIN and other personal data of every citizen and legal resident,” she said.

Damaged Undersea Cable To Be Repaired In 5 weeks 

The damaged cable affected West and Central African countries. The damage is said to be repaired in 5 weeks. This is according to the National Communication Authority in Ghana.

The authority came to this conclusion after a meeting with the four subsea cable landing service providers and telecommunication services. The landing service providers include the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), Equinix’s MainOne, South Atlantic 3, and the West Africa Cable System.

The landing service providers revealed the location of the damage and stated that they had made the necessary arrangements to send repair vessels to the location.

“The cable landing service providers have indicated an estimated time frame of a minimum of five weeks for full-service restoration from the time the vessels are dispatched to the various locations” 

Effects Of The Damaged Undersea Cable On Businesses 

This is going to affect a lot of businesses in the affected African locations, as a lot of individuals have raised their concerns on social media platforms.

Internet and telecommunication downtime issues were reported across West and Central Africa last week, throwing people into a state of confusion across banks, mobile money transactions, etc. Some businesses had declared a major loss due to the issues.

The cause of the downtime was revealed to be some damage to the international undersea cable supplying internet connections to the region.

The damage, which according to MainOne was probably caused by some seismic activity on the seafloor, occurred somewhere around Senegal and the Ivory Coast, with similar damage around Portugal.