Hacker Group CikLeak Breaches Russian Election Infrastructure

The anonymous hacker group CikLeak claims to have breached the infrastructure of the Central Election Commission of Russia and Tsifrotech, a subsidiary of the state-controlled Rostelecom. Tsifrotech serves as the contractor developing the GAS Vybory 2.0 electoral system, which is slated for use in the upcoming State Duma elections for the ninth convocation.

The breach allegedly resulted in the leak of source code, internal company documents, passwords, call recordings, and employee correspondence. The outlet Important Stories has confirmed the authenticity of the leaked archive.

This security failure follows an August statement by Central Election Commission Chair Ella Pamfilova, who asserted that the system could not be hacked. Shortly before the breach reports became public, the Central Election Commission announced it was conducting a review of vulnerabilities in the remote electronic voting system, the video surveillance system, and GAS Vybory.