Nigerian newspaper downed in the ‘equivalent of a nuclear attack on a city’

Staff at the PremiumTimes were blocked from publishing for more than two days.  

When asked who might be behind the assault, Editor in Chief Dapo Olorunyomi said via Twitter  he didn’t really know but probably “the usual suspects! they long announced this in a zigzag way via the Internet surveillance program, I will say!”

His comment on the “Internet surveillance program” referred to online monitoring undertaken by President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

PremiumTimes earlier broke a story stating that the government secretly engaged the services of an Israeli-owned firm, Elbit Systems, to spy on activities of Nigerian Internet users.

On 1/5, Olorunyomi confirmed that the hack, which he likened to “a nuclear attack on a city,” began on 1/3.

“First, with administrators blocked to post or edit stories…then today, site or specific stories blocked,” he told the DailyPost via Twitter.

PremiumTimes is known for its investigative stories and “consistent expository reports on policies and activities of the federal government,” according to the DailyPost.

ThreatWatch is a regularly updated catalog of data breaches successfully striking every sector of the globe, as reported by journalists, researchers and the victims themselves.