Anonymous hacked Russian Yandex taxi app causing massive traffic jams

by James · October 17, 2022

Russia has been one of them main target for hackers since the country waged war against Ukraine. The latest attack was aimed at a ride service Yandex Taxi. The news was first published on Reddit.com.

For your information, Yandex Taxi is owned by Yandex, Russia’s leading IT company, also called the Russian Google. It is worth noting that the EU sanctioned the company’s co-founder Arkady Volozh for “de-ranking and removing” content related to Russian aggression against Ukraine.

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Event details

After hacking the Yandex Taxi app, the unknown hackers created a massive traffic jam in Moscow, Russia. On September 1, 2022, complaints emerged from motorists after they witnessed an unusual pile-up of taxis in the western area of the Russian capital.

What happened was that the attackers ordered all available taxis to a specific address, and an unprecedented traffic jam occurred when dozens of Yandex drivers were stuck because they were at the exact location.

In accordance Forbes Russia, the taxis were directed to one of the main streets of Moscow, Kutuzovsky Prospekt, which is widely known for the Stalinist building called Hotel Ukraina (Hotel Ukraine).

The traffic jam lasted three hours. Yandex’s security team quickly addressed the outage and promised to improve the algorithm to prevent such attacks in the future.

“On the morning of September 1, Yandex Taxi encountered an attempt by attackers to disrupt the service – several dozen drivers received bulk orders to the Fili region,” the press service noted. Due to fake orders, the drivers spent around 40 minutes in a traffic jam.

Forbes Russia

Who is responsible for the hack?

The online hacktivist collective Anonymous has taken responsibility for the cyber attack. In an exclusive conversation with Hackread.com, one of the collective’s active Twitter handles @YourAnonTV (Anonymous TV) said that the attack was carried out by Anonymous in cooperation with the IT Army of Ukraine.

In an exclusive and brief statement to Hackread.com, the IT Army of Ukraine (@ITArmyUKR) also confirmed that they were indeed behind this attack.

Anonymous hacked the app, sending dozens of cars to the exact location, creating a traffic jam that lasted up to three hours.

Anonymous

‼️#Moscow had a stressful day yesterday. The largest taxi service in Russia ‘Yandex Taxi’ was hacked #Anonymous collective. A traffic jam took place in central Moscow as dozens of taxis were dispatched by the hackers to the address on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. #OpRussia pic.twitter.com/6fp1hp0f7r

— Anonymous TV 🇺🇦 (@YourAnonTV) 2 September 2022

How did the breakup happen?

In accordance Oleg Shakirov, a Russian expert on online politics, someone hacked the Yandex app and made a frustrating mix of taxis. The hackers bypassed the company’s security mechanisms and created several fake orders, sending all the drivers to the same location.