Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) warned on May 6, 2026 about malware called DeepLoad, saying fake website-error messages could trick people into running commands that exposed their saved passwords.
The advisory identified government agencies, financial institutions, businesses and individuals as potential targets.
Okay News reports that NITDA described an attack in which a webpage asks a visitor to copy and run a command as though it were a technical repair.
The agency said executing the instruction could install malicious software and allow information stored in web browsers to be stolen.
NITDA advised users to avoid running commands supplied by untrusted webpages, enable additional authentication protections and remove unauthorised browser extensions.
For suspected infections, its advice included disconnecting affected equipment, involving an incident-response team and changing passwords from a separate, clean device.
The warning described the agency’s assessment of the threat. It did not establish the number of affected Nigerian systems.
