In its bid to continue to prevent the unauthorised and malicious access to Smart Card Readers, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said it will upgrade the equipment’s hardware and software.
The upgrading, INEC disclosed, would be a nationwide exercise and will commence next week.
Disclosing the plan in a statement he issued in Abuja on Sunday, INEC’s Director, Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, said it was aware of plans to clone its Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and sell them online.
He however said that measures would be taken to continue to secure all electoral materials.
His words: “We wish to assure the public that the Commission had anticipated this and proactively taken measures to preserve and further secure our electoral materials.
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“Several security features and secret source codes are contained in the Smart Card Readers which enable them to read only PVCs duly issued by the Commission.”
Osaze-Uzzi added that it would work hand in hand with security agencies to get to the root of the plot to clone the electoral materials.
“INEC will engage the government and security agencies as well as the promoters of the platform in order to get to the root of it and take all necessary action to take down the advertisement forthwith.
“In addition to the existing features, the Commission is already working to further secure the PVCs and the Smart Card Readers and will continue to protect them from unauthorised and malicious access.
“It is for this reason that, beginning from next week, we are commencing the systematic hardware and software upgrade of all the Smart Card Readers nationwide,” he said.
