Biggest Independent Russian Election site Hacked on election day


Popular Russian media websites, the major LiveJournal social network and the website of the country’s biggest independent election watchdog, were inaccessible in hacking attacks for several hours on Sunday in what their employees said was an attempt to jam information on parliamentary elections.“The attack on the website on election day is apparently tied to an attempt to publish information about violations,” chief editor of the independent-minded Ekho Moskvy radio Aleksei Venediktov wrote in his Twitter blog.Websites of Forbes Russia, Bolshoi Gorod and New Times magazines, Slon.ru news portal, Golos election watchdog and its Kartanarusheniy.ru website that was supposed to map vote fraud were down throughout most of Sunday.These media organizations and the watchdog have pledged to report voting violations from all over Russia live.Independent and opposition media, as well as the LiveJournal social network that has become the main political discussion venue in Russia, are often subjected to hacking attacks, though the Sunday assault was the most concerted and broad. Law enforcement officials had not commented on it as of late Sunday afternoon.[Source]