More than 1,000 hacker attacks in Russia since the start of parliamentary elections

The Russian election commission announced today that it has recorded “more than 1,000” cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the parliamentary elections, as well as attempts to hack telecommunications that show signs of “Ukrainian interference,” Russian agencies reported.

“More than 1,000 DDoS attacks have been recorded on Russian infrastructure involved in the electoral process,” said the head of the election commission, Ella Pamfilova, citing Russian news agencies.

DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks are intended to overwhelm a system with waves of continuous requests.

“The attacks were carried out by highly professional and well-coordinated groups, using artificial intelligence tools, and most originated from abroad,” Pamfilova said.

“Attempts at targeted attacks were also made on Russian telecommunications infrastructure as a whole,” she said, adding that “all show signs of Ukrainian interference.”

The Russian election commission had already announced on Saturday, the second day of voting, which is also being conducted electronically in about 30 regions, that the voting system was the target of a “very strong cyberattack,” which continued throughout the day.

According to commission data, as of 15:20 Moscow time today, voter turnout was 52.64 percent.