MainOne, a key Nigerian internet service provider, says a configuration error it made during a network upgrade caused a disruption of key Google services that routed traffic to China and Russia.
The company made this clarification on Tuesday in a tweet, following outrage over disruption of web services.
On Monday, millions of Internet users in Nigeria experienced a major downtime as Google’s search, cloud hosting and business tools were among the services disrupted for more than an hour.
There were fears that a deliberate data hijacking was underway, but normal services were restored without any reported loss of data.
Experts say the misdirection of Internet traffic employed can be used to spy on or steal data or send it into an internet black hole.
There have been accusations that China, in particular, has systematically hijacked and divert U.S. internet traffic.