Hackers taxi app mess up Moscow traffic
Hackers have succeeded in completely disrupting taxi traffic in Moscow, causing a two-hour traffic jam.
During the hack, they managed to hack into the servers of the Russian company Yandex Taxi. According to Russian cybersecurity expert Oleg Shakirov, the hackers entered multiple fake commands. They asked the taxi drivers to drive to the same point in Moscow. Interesting detail: the point where all taxis were sent was the Kkutuzovsky Prospekt, one of the largest thoroughfares in Moscow. On this road is a famous Stalinist building called Hotel Ukraine.
Pro-Ukrainian Hackers
So it’s not hard to guess where the hackers’ sympathy lay. Certainly not with the Russian “special operation” Z, which left a trail of devastation in the Eastern European country and caused the largest influx of refugees in post-war history. It is estimated that around 12 million Ukrainians are displaced. Much of the country is now in ruins.
Anonymous the perpetrators?
In Russia, the local search engine Yandex is more than just a search engine. It is also a delivery service, shop and even a taxi company. So you can see Yandex as a kind of Google, Amazon and Uber in one. In short, hacking Yandex can be compared to hacking, for example, Google or Amazon here. If you manage to do that as a hacker, you’re pretty good at your craft. The well-known hacker group Anonymous has claimed this spectacular hack, as part of their project OpRussia. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a fierce cyber war between Russian and pro-Ukrainian hackers.
Previous hacks part of cyber war
Earlier, pro-Ukrainian hackers struck. They massively hacked into Russian security cameras in Moscow and the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, making them play the Ukrainian national anthem to the amusement of many Russians. Russian hackers have hacked, among other things, government websites of Ukraine and of various countries that support Ukraine. To be continued.
