EXCLUSIVE // About 680 thousand cyber attacks on Election Day. Where were the most powerful?
Over 680 thousand cyber attacks were recorded on government websites in the day that was held the presidential runoff. The primary information about attempted attacks on the web pages of several state institutions in Moldova has been confirmed for Deschide.MD by the press officer of Security and Intelligence Service (SIS), Daniela Manzatu, then was detailed by the chief executive of the Center of Special Telecommunications (CTS), Serghei Popovici.
A staff of about 25 administrators were "enrolled" on election day to deal with cyber attacks.
The chief executive of the Center of Special Telecommunications told us that 62 thousand attacks were of "thor" and "proxy" type. At 18:00 began a series of very powerful attacks on the page of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, CTS managers have successfully managed their rejection.
In addition, the Central Election Commission (CEC) website was also attacked, but not so strong as mfa.gov.md.
When asked how he explains the technical problems of CEC website after processing of ballots began, Serghei Popovici told us that if they appeared to some Internet users that happened only because of overcrowding this site. "In those moments on CEC website were around 7,000 concurrent users."
We recall that in the first round of presidential elections the website of the Central Election Commission of Moldova suffered over 41,000 cyber attacks. According to specialists, they were intensified after 21:00, when the counting and processing of votes started.