Operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigerian Police Force have arrested no fewer than 20 suspects for hacking the 2025 Computer-Based Test (CBT) examinations conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
The suspects, who are currently in custody in Abuja, are part of a syndicate believed to have over 100 persons, who specialise in hacking the computer servers of examination bodies like JAMB and the National Examinations Council (NECO).
According to security sources, the suspects have confessed to sabotaging the CBT system to discredit JAMB and discourage students from using CBT for future WAEC/NECO examinations.
One of the suspects, the source said, confessed how the syndicate was able to maneuver the server and hack into the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), revealing that the syndicate would install attacking software on the examination body hardware which would, in turn, remotely hack JAMB servers at any targeted CBT centre.
The source also listed suspects from Lagos; Edo, Anambra, Kano, Delta, among other states.
According to the source, names of the suspects are kept away from the public pending their arraignment in court.
“While the controversy raged, little did the public know that the DSS had been covertly monitoring and investigating this dangerous web of attacks. The investigations led to the arrest of over 20 persons across the country, with arrests still ongoing.
“The strategy of these hackers involved mounting routers within the vicinity of the targeted CBT centres. The routers would, in turn, override JAMB platforms at the centres, making it easy for the special candidates who paid to get answers to the questions.
“The intrusion of the ghost software by the syndicate distorted the system, making answers provided by candidates during the exam to be at variance with the questions. This eventually led to the recorded mass failure,” the security source said.
The syndicate was also said to be carrying out the entire hacking process to influence high scores for special candidates who paid between N700,000 and N2 million.
The source added that following a preliminary investigation, several members of the syndicate have been discovered to own private schools and colleges and make huge sums of money from their special centres.
They fear that fully integrating WAEC/NECO for CBT type of examinations will ruin their illegal business, it was learnt.
The source however added that, as at Friday evening, “no case of complicity had been established against the seven JAMB staff who supervised the Service Providers at the two locations.”
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