TE24 Sci &Tech Desk:
Hackers used Russian ride-hailing app Yandex Taxi to take dozens of taxis to the same location at once before causing massive traffic jams in Moscow (via Vice). The attack on the already busy boulevard O Kutuzovsky Prospekt was called off on 1 September.
A video showing a queue of taxis trying to reach the same destination was shared widely on Twitter and Reddit on Thursday. Moscow is known for its heavy traffic and last year it was ranked the second busiest city in the world but the incident has nothing to do with the capital’s general traffic pattern. was
On the morning of September 1, Yandex.Taxi encountered an attacker’s attempt to disrupt its services. Dozens of drivers received bulk orders for the Philly area, he said. Russia’s state-owned telecommunications company said in a statement to TASS.
The ride-hailing service, owned by Russian internet giant Yandex, was stuck in traffic for about 40 minutes and said algorithms had already been improved to detect and prevent such attacks to avoid similar incidents in the future. Added Yandex did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Yandex has yet to confirm who carried out the attack, but hacktivist group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the jam on its Twitter account. When Russia first invaded Ukraine, a loose group of hacktivists formed by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov was said to be working with its IT army in Ukraine.
Earlier this year Anonymous declared a cyberwar against Russia after claiming that a Russian TV channel hijacked to show footage of the war was deemed illegal by the country. Since then hacktivists have leaked terabytes worth of data and emails from government agencies and major corporations as part of an ongoing cyber attack against Russia.
