Published 08/14/2024 16:12 | Edited 08/14/2024 16:18
The Venezuelan government presented details on Monday (12) of the cyber attack on the country’s electoral system in the presidential election, held on July 28. Venezuelan authorities claim that the hacking offensive was carried out from abroad and hampered the work of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which continues with its official website offline.
This has been the main justification given by the CNE – and the Venezuelan government – for the delay in publishing detailed election data. According to the Minister of Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez, there were an average of 30 million attacks per minute on the 28th.
According to the minister, 65% of these attacks were denial of service attacks – or DDoS attacks. This is a way of congesting the system with a very large volume of access requests, forcing it to crash. In other words, many computers try to access the same website at the same time, making the same requests, creating an unbearable flow for a given online page.
She said 25 institutions in the country were affected, including everything from the state oil company (PDVSA), to communications and telecommunications companies, and even the electoral system.
“The attacks are increasing 24 hours a day. All state platforms have been attacked in multiple ways,” Jiménez explained, adding that 65% of the attacks were to take down internet services and 17% to steal information.
The CNE handed over to the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) the data that would prove the cyberattack after the TSJ began an investigation into the matter, at the request of the Maduro government. The president of the Supreme Court, magistrate Caryslia Rodríguez, said that she will review all the data on the attack.
“[O TSJ] will carry out an expert assessment of the massive cyber attack on the Venezuelan electoral system, for which the Chamber [do Tribunal] will have highly qualified and suitable personnel who will use the highest technical standards”, said the judge of the country’s highest court.
The CNE also reported that the attacks were unable to alter the votes, which are protected by their own system, without an internet connection. In addition, Maduro accused multibillionaire Elon Musk, owner of the X platform, formerly Twitter, of being involved in the case.
The minister stated that the IP of the Venezuelan telephone company CanTV, responsible for transmitting voting data to the National Electoral Council (CNE) system, was “hijacked.” “The IPs are changed and when users try to access links to websites with some service, they are redirected to a completely different website and this movement collapses the servers as a whole,” the minister stated.
The government estimates that a large-scale attack like this could cost between $500 and $5,000 (R$2,746 to R$27,467) per hour. The minister said that, for this to happen, “great economic and technological potential” would be required.
“We have a significant volume in terms of the number of attacks, significant funding and diversity of attacks against state institutions. Who has the capacity to carry out an attack of this size? A state like the United States, which has agencies like the NSA [Agência de Segurança Nacional]which has a budget for high-magnitude attacks,” he said.
Netscout X Carter
The government’s version was partially corroborated by a major US information security firm, Netscout Systems. The company claims that the day after the election, on July 29, DDoS attacks against targets in Venezuela increased tenfold. This type of attack is typically used to take down websites and systems.
“Even a small amount of traffic, if sent at the right time to an unprepared target, can result in network disruptions,” Netscout said, adding that “nearly all of the attacks against Venezuela on the days in question targeted a single telecommunications provider.” However, Netscout’s analysis did not include the days after the 29th of last month.
On the other hand, the head of the Carter Center’s observation mission, Jennie Lincoln – who participated in the election observation mission in Venezuela – stated that there is no evidence of this cyber attack.
“There are companies that monitor and know when there are denials of service [ataques cibernéticos] and there wasn’t one on election day or that night,” Lincoln explained in an exclusive interview with the French agency AFP, without, however, saying which companies she consulted.
Source: vermelho.org.br
