Taxi for Putin, please! Hackers cause congestion in Moscow by sending hundreds of taxis to pick up bogus passengers in the Russian capital (but was it in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine?).
Similar to Uber, hackers attacked Yandex Taxi, a taxi-hailing service.
They sent hundreds of drivers to the same Kutuzovsky Prospekt pickup location.
The massive 10-lane motorway leading into the center of the Russian city was congested.
No one has claimed responsibility for the back, although it coincides with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Even before the invasion started, the two nations engaged in cyberwarfare.
Thursday, hackers attacked a Russian cab app, sending hundreds of drivers to the same Moscow location and generating massive traffic congestion in the city center.
Yandex Taxi, a Russian software comparable to Uber that enables users to order cars to their current location, was reportedly attacked in the morning. The corporation subsequently issued a statement confirming the occurrence.
“On the morning of September 1, Yandex Taxi met an effort by attackers to disrupt the service,” the business stated in a statement to Forbes.ru. “Several dozen drivers got bulk orders to the Fili area.”
Thursday, hackers attacked a Russian cab app, sending hundreds of drivers to the same Moscow location and generating massive traffic congestion in the city center (pictured)
As a consequence of the hack, cabs flocked to Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a key east-to-west thoroughfare going to the center of the Russian city.
With eight to ten lanes, Kutuzovsky Prospekt seldom becomes congested. Nonetheless, cars wasted around 40 minutes in gridlock owing to the fraudulent pick-up requests.
The business’s security staff ‘quickly halted efforts to artificially arrange cabs,’ the company said. However, this was insufficient to stop the traffic jam.
Still, drivers wasted around 40 minutes in traffic congestion owing to fraudulent orders. The question of compensation will soon be handled,’ the business said.
It highlighted that the exploitable vulnerability had previously been patched.
Moscow footage showed the jam. A video captured from inside one of the taxis saw scores of yellow automobiles hardly going in the same direction.
The individual filming the video then presented an address on Kutuzovsky Prospekt on the screen of his phone.
No one has claimed responsibility for the hack, which occurred as Vladimir Putin’s soldiers continued their invasion of Ukraine’s neighbor.
In addition to combat on the ground, each side has also engaged in cyber warfare, either by their own governments or by vigilantes.
Yandex Taxi, a Russian software comparable to Uber that enables users to order cars to their current location, was reportedly attacked in the morning. In a subsequent statement, the corporation verified that highways were closed for around forty minutes on Tuesday morning.
With eight to ten lanes, Kutuzovsky Prospekt seldom experiences congestion. However, vehicles wasted around forty minutes in traffic owing to the fraudulent pick-up requests.
As a consequence of the hack, cabs flocked to Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a key east-to-west thoroughfare going to the center of the Russian city. Pictured: On the screen of one of the drivers, a Kutuzovsky Prospekt can be seen.
Russia has a long history of initiating cyber assaults against countries that cross its path. Pro-Kremlin hackers attacked the Latvian government after that nation designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Citizen hackers have targeted government infrastructure and trolls have targeted Russian officials, while Ukraine controls the internet narrative of the conflict.
In the days leading up to the battle, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s tech aide, solicited volunteers to form a “IT Army” of hackers to assist in his country’s fight against Russia.
Dozens of Russian websites have been taken down since then. Russian state media has also been targeted, and sensitive information leaked.
In addition, a vast number of OSINT (open-source intelligence) social media accounts have been vigilantly monitoring the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
This has resulted in the public disclosure of Putin’s army movements, the rapid exposure of Russian war crimes, and the rapid debunking of false information, challenging the Kremlin’s huge propaganda machine.