Cyber fraud leads to blockage of Nigeria’s IP address

I bought myself a copy of today’s “The Punch” (a Nigerian daily newspaper) and turned to page three, only to see this headline: “Cyber fraud leads to blockage of Nigeria’s IP address” on a red background.

Apparently, GoDaddy (an ICANN-accredited domain registrar) was fed-up with the high level of cybercrime emanating out of Nigeria, and thus decided to take this drastic action of blocking all the IP addresses identified with Nigeria, from accessing thier website – www.godaddy.com
I am yet to verify this independently though. (I’m currently in Nigeria)

According to a table displayed within the news report, the top 10 perpetrators of cybercrime are
1. United States – 78.75%
2. Canada – 3.03%
3. Nigeria – 2.87%
4. United Kingdom – 2.32%
5. Italy – 2.01%
6. Greece – 1.04%
7. Romania – 0.92%
8. France – 0.86%
9. Spain – 0.6%
10. China – 0.58%

The info above is said to have been sourced from the US Internet Fraud Complaint Centre.

Now, one glaring fact is that, Nigeria has been isolated by GoDaddy Inc, for the ban. Why not extend the ban to at least, the first five countries reported to be the worst perpetrators of cyber fraud. I’d then see how they’d remain in business after banning the top countries from which Internet traffic originates.

I went to a cybercafe in Ibadan (one of the largest cities in South western Nigeria) where I knew they were using VSAT for their Internet connection and attempted to open www.godaddy.com
Indeed, the site opened, without an fuss. Why waste time on such a fruitless exercise as banning Nigeria?

They should just tell us something else or keep their peace.

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Oluniyi D. Ajao
Oluniyi D. Ajao is an Internet Entrepreneur and Tech Enthusiast based in South Africa. Follow him on twitter @niyyie for more tech updates.

2 Comments

  1. Hi !

    Sorry but in the cyber cafe in the Great Accra, you find many scammers, they are ghanaian not nigerian !
    they are 15 to 25 years, young men, not girls !
    The IP from Yahoo’s 209.131.36.158, yes, the location is in US but it’s also from Ghana cyber and for IP from Hotmail’s 212.162.1.124 location in Germany… but many scammers used this IP Yahoo and Hotmail ! I assure you, I have any contacts from Ghana with this IP… I can provide it, the scammers are members out hi5, facebook, meetic, worldofjah…. it’s a shame. They profess love but it’s just to obtain your money, by Western Union or MoneyGram.
    I love Ghana and his people. The Ghanaian are very proud to be Ghanaian !
    We can stopped this criminals activity but stay “open eyes”… In Top, you have Nigeria, and after Ivory Coast… I’m sade but Ghana follow them !

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