Nigeria recorded over 119,000 leaked information breaches within the first quarter of 2025, in response to the newest world information breach report from cybersecurity agency Surfshark.
This locations the nation thirty fourth worldwide when it comes to the variety of breached accounts.
An information breach implies that an intruder copied and leaked consumer information corresponding to names, surnames, electronic mail addresses, passwords, and many others.
One breached electronic mail deal with is taken into account as one breached consumer/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 autumn 2024 to Q1 2025, consistent with a worldwide 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.
Surfshark’s long-term information reveals that Nigeria stays some of the affected international locations in Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of information breaches.
Since 2004, roughly 23.2 million Nigerian consumer accounts have been compromised.
Out of those:
Globally, probably the most affected international locations have been america (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 towards complacency.
“Though the variety of weak accounts in all main areas decreased, individuals ought to stay vigilant,” mentioned Analysis Lead at Surfshark, Luís Costa.
“Cyberthreats are continuously evolving, and attackers are adapting their ways. Robust 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:
Surfshark’s analysis relies on information gathered from 29,000 publicly accessible databases.
Every distinctive breached electronic mail deal with is handled as a separate consumer account, and breaches typically embrace further private information corresponding to passwords, cellphone numbers, IP addresses, and postal codes.
The info was anonymized earlier than evaluation, and international locations with populations below a million have been excluded from the research.
