Parliamentary elections will be held in Russia from Friday to Sunday. Just a few days before they begin, an anonymous hacker group announced that it had hacked into the infrastructure of the Central Election Commission of Russia (CEC) and the contractors developing the country’s new electronic voting system.
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The group “CikLeak” claims to have targeted the infrastructure of the CEC and its contractors, including the state-controlled telecommunications giant “Rostelecom” and its subsidiary “Cifrotech,” which is involved in developing the “GAS Vybory 2.0” election system.
“We infiltrated the infrastructure of the Russian CEC and downloaded secret documents and internal developer chats, obtained server configuration data, passwords, and much more,” the group posted online.
Impossible to hack?
“We do not interfere with the work of election commissions and the voting process, but we help reveal how it all works from the inside,” the hackers added.
“We want Russian citizens to learn more about how the authorities can rig elections.”
The possible hack was reported just hours after a CEC meeting where the commission chair Ela Pamfilova and Russia’s Deputy Minister of Digital Development Oleg Kachanov discussed the system’s security, reported the “Kyiv Post” publication.
According to reports, they acknowledged that since the system’s launch earlier this year, it has faced an unprecedented number of cyberattacks. However, both officials claimed that the system remains “maximally secure.”
E. Pamfilova had previously stated that it is “impossible to hack” this system.
“The easiest way to steal votes”
The independent Russian publication “Important Stories” reported that it reviewed the material provided by “CikLeak” and confirmed its authenticity, although the full significance of the documents has not yet been independently determined.
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When asked for comment, “Cifrotech” director Aleksey Gusev said: “This is the first time I hear about this.”
According to “CikLeak,” the group aimed not to disrupt voting but to reveal how the authorities could manipulate electronic voting results by exploiting possible system vulnerabilities.
“The CEC created a completely non-transparent remote electronic voting system,” the hackers claimed, calling it “the easiest way to steal votes.”
The group urged Russian residents to vote at polling stations rather than electronically.
Upcoming “elections”
These statements were made as Russia prepares to elect the national parliament – the State Duma – from September 18 to 20.
The Supreme Court banned the candidate list of the liberal party “Yabloko” – the only registered party openly opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine – from participating in the nationwide elections.
Russia also did not invite observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). According to the OSCE, this decision reflects a broader trend of disregarding transparency, democratic accountability, and the rule of law principles.
