Nigeria recorded over 119,000 leaked knowledge breaches within the first quarter of 2025, in line with the most recent world knowledge breach report from cybersecurity agency Surfshark.
This locations the nation thirty fourth worldwide by way of the variety of breached accounts.
An information breach implies that an intruder copied and leaked person knowledge akin to names, surnames, e-mail addresses, passwords, and so on.
One breached e-mail handle is taken into account as one breached person/account.
Nevertheless, whereas the determine for Nigeria might seem alarming, it truly displays a pointy decline in breach exercise in comparison with earlier quarters.
Surfshark’s evaluation signifies an 85% drop within the variety of leaked accounts in Nigeria from This fall 2024 to Q1 2025, in step with a world development that noticed leaked accounts plunge 93% year-on-year, from 973.7 million in Q1 2024 to simply 68.3 million in Q1 2025.
Nigeria’s knowledge breach panorama
Surfshark’s long-term knowledge reveals that Nigeria stays some of the affected international locations in Sub-Saharan Africa with regards to knowledge breaches.
Since 2004, roughly 23.2 million Nigerian person accounts have been compromised.
Out of those:
- 7.3 million distinctive e-mail addresses have been uncovered.
- 13 million passwords have been leaked alongside the accounts.
- 56% of customers whose accounts have been compromised are liable to identification theft, extortion, or unauthorized account entry.
- Statistically, 10 in each 100 Nigerians have been affected by knowledge breaches, and in Q1 2025 alone, roughly one Nigerian account was breached each minute.
Most affected international locations
Globally, probably the most affected international locations have been the US (16.9 million leaked accounts), adopted by Russia (4.4 million), India (4.2 million), Germany (3.9 million), and Spain (2.4 million).
Regardless of the drop in Nigeria and some different international locations captured within the report, cybersecurity consultants are warning in opposition to complacency.
“Though the variety of weak accounts in all main areas decreased, folks ought to stay vigilant,” mentioned Analysis Lead at Surfshark, Luís Costa.
“Cyberthreats are always evolving, and attackers are adapting their ways. Sturdy safety practices, frequent password updates, and enabling two-factor authentication stay important,” he added.
Nations with the very best breach density (measured by the variety of leaked accounts per 1,000 residents) have been:
- South Sudan (61)
- Spain (51)
- United States (49)
- Germany (46)
- Slovenia (45)
- Different international locations within the prime 10 embody Israel, the UK, France, Russia, and Norway.
Methodology
Surfshark’s analysis is predicated on knowledge gathered from 29,000 publicly out there databases.
Every distinctive breached e-mail handle is handled as a separate person account, and breaches usually embody extra private knowledge akin to passwords, cellphone numbers, IP addresses, and postal codes.
The information was anonymized earlier than evaluation, and international locations with populations below a million have been excluded from the research.
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