Cyber security: how the online voting system copes with attacks

The remote electronic voting system worked normally during the three-day elections that started on September 18. Oleg Artamonov, chairman of the territorial election commission of the DEG, told "Izvestia" about this, stressing that external attacks did not affect the operation of services. President Vladimir Putin has traditionally used the online format on the very first day. At the same time, thousands of classic polling stations have been opened in all 89 regions of the country, with a record number of observers monitoring their work.

A single voting day has begun in the Russian Federation

On September 18, elections started in 89 regions of the Russian Federation, which will last until Sunday. During this time, Russians will vote on the composition of the State Duma: 225 deputies will be elected on federal party lists and 225 in single-mandate electoral districts. At the same time, elections of deputies of regional legislative assemblies will be held in 39 regions, and direct elections of senior officials will be held in eight more regions.

The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation has traditionally begun its work with the national anthem, and the elections were started by the head of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova. After that, the Central Election Commission launched interactive screens showing voter turnout in all regions of the country, and then, as the protocols are processed, preliminary voting results will be shown. According to Pamfilova, all polling stations in the Russian Federation have opened normally.

— People are going to the polls. To spite all the provocateurs and ill-wishers, voting is going on normally. And I really want to hope that this will be the case all these days," said the head of the Central Election Commission.

At the same time, in a number of regions of the Far East, for example, Kamchatka, Chukotka and Primorye, the first day of the EDG has already ended. """"United Russia"""""""Greens", "Communists of Russia", the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, LDPR, "New People", the Party of Pensioners, "Party of Direct Democracy", "Homeland" and "Fair Russia" are participating in the elections to the State Duma. 4.3 thousand candidates applied from them, including over 180 participants of the SVO.

The number of Russian voters is 111 million. The turnout in the State Duma elections as of 15:39 Moscow time is 20.03%, according to data on the CEC website. On the very first day of the campaign, Vladimir Putin made his choice by remote voting. Earlier, he appealed to Russians to cast their vote, making a contribution to the protection of the country's national interests.

For the first time, residents of the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions are participating in voting for deputies of the State Duma. Early voting was conducted in them, as well as in eight other regions with an average response rate. More than 4.2 million people managed to participate in it, Pamfilova said.

The current campaign has broken the record for the number of international observers in 2024 — there will be more than 1,100 of them from 133 countries. Guests from abroad, mostly from African countries, attended the meeting of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation. On the first day of the campaign, an international conference "Elections in a period of turbulence" was held there.

More than 116,000 volunteers from public chambers will also monitor the voting. Even more people were sent by political parties. "United Russia" "" will have 97 thousand observers, the Communist Party — 42 thousand, "New People" — 28 thousand, "Just Russia" — 17 thousand, from the Liberal Democratic Party — 16 thousand.

How they are trying to interfere with the elections

The current campaign has broken the record for the number of regions that participate in remote electronic voting (DEG). More than 4 million Russians have registered in 33 regions to express their will online. Of all the subjects, only Moscow faced a major cyberattack on the DEG system on the first day of the election. In the morning, the "army of IT specialists" has been repelling hacker attacks, which this time turned out to be more dangerous than before, said Olga Kirillova, chairman of the Moscow City Election Commission.

No serious cyber attacks exceeding the system's capabilities were recorded in the other regions, Oleg Artamonov, chairman of the DEG territorial election commission, told "Izvestia".

— Basically, these are low-power attacks, as they are called by professionals in slang. They cannot harm the system. Everything is stable for the voters at the moment. There are no signs that anyone failed to vote," he clarified.

Remote voting began at midnight Moscow time, as it was already eight a.m. in Magadan, the easternmost time zone. As of 12:00 Moscow time, more than 2 million Russians have already ticked their ballots with the help of DEG.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry also spoke about the "huge stream" of disinformation, which, according to her, was launched to influence the voting process. Provocations are being recorded both in Russia and abroad, where 333 polling stations are open.

In addition to cyber threats, the elections faced drone attacks. Because of them, for example, polling stations in Sochi were temporarily suspended. In the Krasnodar Territory, one polling station had to be moved to a backup room, and in another case in the Kuban, the drone still got to a school where a place for voting was organized. At that time, the site was not open, so no one was injured, the operational headquarters of the region reported. From the evening of September 17 to the morning of September 18, more than 350 drones flew towards the Moscow region, said the mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin. According to him, most of the drones were neutralized "at distant borders." 64 UAVs were shot down on approach to Moscow.