Russia: More than a Thousand Cyber Attacks Targeted the Elections

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Russian authorities announced on Sunday that they had detected more than a thousand cyberattacks targeting the legislative elections, coinciding with the third and final day of voting, amid Russian accusations of attempts to disrupt the electoral process.

French news agency AFP reported a Russian official saying that more than 1,000 cyberattacks targeted the elections, while the Central Election Commission had previously announced that systems related to voting had been subjected to cyberattacks during the polling process.

Central Election Commission Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said on Saturday that the electronic voting system in Moscow had been subjected to what she described as "very strong" cyberattacks throughout the night, confirming that the attacks continued almost continuously. She did not specify at that time who was responsible for them.

Despite the attacks, Russian authorities stated that the electronic voting system continued to operate normally and that the polling process did not stop.

Pamfilova also spoke about acts targeting communication lines in the far east of Russia, describing them as "deliberate sabotage" aimed at disrupting the voting.

The head of the election committee had warned before the voting began of a significant increase in attacks targeting the electoral system and its infrastructure, stating that their pace and intensity are difficult to compare with what Russia has witnessed in previous years, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

The Russian legislative elections are being held over three days, from September 18 to 20, to elect members of the State Duma, which has 450 deputies.

The cyberattacks coincided with a large Ukrainian drone attack on Russian territory. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the interception of more than 1,100 drones overnight, while Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin stated that 450 drones were headed towards the capital.

Sobyanin accused Ukraine of attempting to influence the elections through the drone attack, stating that the attempt did not disrupt the voting. Kyiv has not announced that the elections were a target of the attack.

Regarding the cyber attacks, the initial information about the toll, which exceeded a thousand attacks, did not include independent evidence identifying the party that carried them out, while Moscow had accused Kyiv of attempting to disrupt the elections before the voting began, a charge that Ukraine did not comment on at the time.