The Nigerian Army has confirmed an attempted breach of its official X (formerly Twitter) account, marking the second cybersecurity incident involving a Nigerian military social media platform in just two weeks.
In a statement issued Saturday in Abuja, Colonel Appolonia Anele, Acting Director of Army Public Relations, said the incident occurred at about 1700 hours (5 p.m.) on Saturday, 29 August 2026, and is being treated as a cybersecurity breach. She added that immediate technical and protective measures were being activated to secure the account, prevent further unauthorised access and safeguard the integrity of information disseminated 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,” Anele said.
The Army advised the public to exercise caution and disregard any suspicious, unauthorised, misleading or unverified content emanating from the affected account, noting that such content does not represent the military’s official position. Citizens and media organisations were urged to verify information instead through the Army’s other official channels, including its Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube accounts under the handles @hqnigerianarmy and @nigerianarmyinfo.
It remains unclear whether the Army has regained full administrative control of the account.
This is the second such attack on a Nigerian military social media account this month. On August 15, the official X account of Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters, @DHQNigeria, was compromised, and hackers used the account to publish cryptocurrency scam posts to its nearly one million followers. The account was used to promote “Firelight FXRP rewards” and direct users to a cryptocurrency claims portal.
The Defence Headquarters confirmed the breach in a statement signed by the Director of Defence Information, Major General Samaila Uba, who said measures were being taken to secure the account and prevent further unauthorised activity. Uba did not disclose when the account was compromised or provide details about those responsible for the unauthorised access.
The fraudulent posts remained visible on the DHQ account for several hours, and some reports found them still live as of the following morning, raising concerns about the military’s platform being used to spread misleading information.
Security analysts have noted that no attacker has been identified in either case, and the first incident appears to reflect ordinary financially motivated crime rather than the work of a foreign government — a distinction some say should be cause for greater concern rather than less, given how easily the accounts were compromised. One notable difference between the two incidents is that the Army appears to have caught its attack in progress, whereas the Defence Headquarters did not.
The back-to-back breaches have raised broader concerns over the security of official social media accounts belonging to sensitive government and military institutions, particularly those used to communicate information to the public about security operations. With Nigeria’s 2027 general elections approaching, the incidents have also renewed questions about the resilience of official government communication channels against opportunistic and potentially more sophisticated attacks.
