The focus of the investigation reportedly initiated by Nigeria's National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) into an alleged security and data breach at a top betting site in the country may change as new information emerges.

An iAfrikan report on 6 January 2020 detailed that an investigation would be initiated after a potential security and data breach at SureBet247.

The alleged breach was raised by Troy Hunt who runs an ethical data breach notification service (haveibeenpwned.com) and picked up by iAfrikan.

Hunt cites several indicators for his submission of a possible breach including the betting site's response, their suggestion of an informant "asking for payment" and a demonstrated password reset feature that confirmed emails in the alleged breach exists in their system.

In an exchange with ITWeb Africa, SureBet247's co-founder Sheriff Olaniyan sought to "correct the notation" of a data breach claiming "BtoBet server provider was breached on the said date and not Surebet247 directly."

This is in line with iAfrikan's latest post on the topic (9 January 2020), as well as various other media sources, which pointed out new information has emerged to show Macedonia-based BtoBet online betting and casino software company as having "possibly suffered a security breach" resulting in the databases and code of its betting operator customers in Africa and South America being accessed.

Olaniyan claims as is the case with several other operators, the SureBet247 platform uses solutions that BtoBet develops and sells.

He adds when BtoBet was breached, the data leak is linked to SureBet247 because "they thought we provide our own server".

"Based on the information prompting you to contact us, we are in defence of why our name is mentioned," Olaniyan states, adding that further legal recourse is being considered against the undisclosed contact that has provided information about the alleged hack.

Prior to news of BtoBet's security and data breach, iAfrikan published that SureBet247 had suffered a data breach based on information an anonymous source reportedly provided to Hunt (of haveibeenpwned) who brought the issue to light.

Olaniyan claims they have messages where money is being solicited in exchange for not writing frivolous reports about SureBet247 in the form of a blackmail but would rather "not further create a diversion" until the full report of an ongoing investigation is available.

Details are sketchy in terms of the NITDA investigation, its timeline or what the possible outcomes could be.