esentry Reports Over ₦1bn Fraud in Nigeria's Financial Sector

According to cybersecurity company esentry, three significant fraud incidents involving over ₦1 billion occurred in Nigeria's fintech, payment infrastructure, and core banking sectors without triggering automated security alerts. These incidents were identified during routine audits, customer support tickets, or settlement warnings after the attacks had concluded.

In a summary released on September 15, 2026, esentry attributed the failures to the abuse of trusted access and the absence of activity logs. Gbolabo Awelewa, esentry's chief business officer, stated that attackers are increasingly exploiting trust rather than system vulnerabilities.

A valid login can indicate possession of accepted credentials without confirming the rightful owner's identity. Furthermore, missing logs hinder investigators and monitoring tools from connecting suspicious actions.

To mitigate these issues, esentry recommends retaining authentication source addresses, recording outbound activity, and verifying permissions at the application's backend.