12 July 2017, 16:02 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Central Election Commission of Russia expects it might become target of powerful hacking attacks during the upcoming March 2018 presidential election and has moved to outmaneuver possible assailants, a commission member, Anton Lopatin, said Thursday.
"Yes, we expect hacker attacks on the Commission website, we are taking pre-emptive measures," Lopatin told reporters.
The Commission's website gets attacked every time there is an election, from locations in the Americas, Asia and Russia that could not be pinned down, Lopatin noted.
He said that hacker attacks threat could originate from the electronic voting machines because their hardware and software were of foreign origin.
The official added that there also could be a breach linked to the fact that the system administrators had the means to log into the system. However, such specialists are being checked by relevant agencies several times a year, he noted.
