Tag: moscow
Putin ‘deploys elite guard to Moscow’ amid fears of coup with military on high alert
Anonymous claims responsibility for Moscow traffic jam tied to app exploit
On Thursday morning, Moscow’s busy Fili district became the site of a traffic jam unlike any before it. Motherboard (via The Verge) reports hackers used Russia’s Yandex Taxi ride-hailing app to order dozens of drivers to coverage on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. The act caused traffic on part of the already congested street to come to a standstill for about 40 minutes while Yandex worked to address the situation.
“On the morning of September 1st, Yandex Taxi encountered an attempt by attackers to disrupt the service — several dozen drivers received bulk orders to the Fili district of Moscow,” a Yandex spokesperson told Motherboard. In a separate statement shared with Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency, Yandex said it reworked its routing algorithm following the attack to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. The event is one of the first known instances of hackers exploiting a ride-hailing app to create a traffic jam.
Someone hacked #YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to Kutuzov Prospect in Moscow
Now there is a huge traffic jam with taxis.
It‘s like James Bond movie. pic.twitter.com/IatuAEtA2i
— Russian Market (@runews) September 1, 2022
Several Twitter accounts claiming affiliation with Anonymous say the hacktivist collective is behind the incident. On Friday, one Anonymous account said the group worked with the IT Army of Ukraine, a volunteer organization formed at the start of the war, to carry out the attack.
Anonymous previously claimed responsibility for a cyberattack that took down multiple Russian government websites, including those belonging to the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defence. “Faced with this series of attacks that Ukraine has been suffering from the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, we could not help but support the Ukrainian people,” the group said at the time.
Hackers caused a massive traffic jam in Moscow using a ride-hailing app
Hackers caused a major traffic jam in Moscow after exploiting the Russian ride-hailing app, Yandex Taxi, to summon dozens of taxis to the same location at the same time (via Vice). The attack occurred on September 1st and had traffic heading towards Kutuzovsky Prospect — an already busy boulevard — stuck at a standstill.
A video showing lines of taxis seemingly trying to get to the same destination was shared widely on Twitter and Reddit on Thursday. While Moscow is known for its heavy traffic — it ranked number two as the world’s most congested city in the world last year — this incident wasn’t related to the capital city’s typical traffic patterns.
Someone hacked #YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to Kutuzov Prospect in…