Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Russia’s election chief spent the summer telling the country its new voting platform was airtight.
Two days before polling stations open for the first Duma elections since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, that assurance has run into a claim from an anonymous group of hackers.
The group, calling itself CikLeak, said on Wednesday it had breached the infrastructure of Russia’s Central Election Commission and one of its main contractors, walking out with the code and passwords behind the country’s new electronic voting platform.
Investigative outlet Vazhnye Istorii, which received the material and confirmed its authenticity, said the trove includes internal documents, application source code, employee correspondence and recordings of internal calls.
The contractor at the center
The compromised contractor is Tsifrotekh, a subsidiary of state-owned telecom Rostelecom that helped build GAS “Elections” 2.0, the upgraded state automated election system the Central Election Commission put into service earlier this year.
Tsifrotekh director Alexey Gusev told journalists he had no knowledge of any intrusion, according to Meduza.
Commission chief Ella Pamfilova had described the platform in August as “impossible to hack,” saying it was fully cut off from the internet and therefore shielded from outside interference.
What the hackers say they want
CikLeak has framed the release as a protest, not sabotage.
In its statement, published through independent outlet Echo, the group urged Russians to refuse remote electronic voting, which it called “the easiest way to steal votes,” and to cast paper ballots in person.
It also addressed local election commissioners: “Don’t participate in vote rigging. We know who you are. Do not help the regime continue the war and kill people.”
The State Duma vote runs September 18 to 20 and is the first federal parliamentary election in Russia since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin is treating the ballot as a broad endorsement of its wartime course, and independent monitors have already flagged the expansion of remote electronic voting as a channel for manipulation.
Vazhnye Istorii said it is preparing an investigation based on the leaked material.
