Breaking: Massive Hack on 2025 UTME Results Thwarted – 20 Arrested!

At least 20 people have been taken into custody by the Nigerian Police Force and the Department of State Services (DSS) in connection with the hacking of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), a computer-based test.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, or JAMB, administered the 2025 UTME.

According to the AIT, the suspects are members of a syndicate that is thought to consist of more than 100 individuals who specialize in hacking the computer servers of testing organizations such as JAMB and the National Examinations Council, or NECO.

The suspects admitted to damaging the CBT system to discredit JAMB and deter students from utilizing it for upcoming exams administered by NECO and the West African Examination Council, or WAEC, according to security sources cited in the article.

On the hardware used for the examination, the syndicate would install malicious software. One of the suspects confessed, according to the source, that the malware will remotely breach JAMB servers at any designated CBT center.

For exceptional applicants who spent between N700,000 and N2 million, the goal of the entire hacking procedure was to influence high scores.

According to the study, initial inquiries also showed that a number of syndicate members run private schools and universities and profit greatly from their special centers.