Indonesia Says Election Under Attack From Chinese, Russian Hackers

• Chinese and Russian hackers are attacking Indonesia’s voter data base in a bid to disrupt the country’s upcoming presidential election, according to a senior election commission official.
• As Indonesia prepares for simultaneous presidential and legislative polls on 17 Apr 19, authorities are facing a wave of cyber incursions they say may be aimed at discrediting the polling process.
• The head of Indonesia’s General Elections Commission, Arief Budiman, said some of the attacks originated in Russia and China, and include attempts to “manipulate or modify” content as well as to create so-called ghost voters, or fake voter identities.
• “Not only every day. Almost every hour,” he said, adding it was unclear whether the motive was “to disrupt Indonesia” or to help one of the candidates win.
• A KPU source with knowledge of the matter said the voter database had been subject to “probing” attacks from IP addresses originating in several countries, not just China and Russia.
• Russia rejected the allegation of cyber attacks in Indonesia as “baseless,” with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the country doesn’t meddle.
• The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a fax seeking comment.
• The commission also started an investigation into separate allegations of voter fraud raised by the campaign team for Subianto, more commonly known as Prabowo, Budiman said.
• The probe, which is expected to be completed this week, will examine whether 17.5 million names have been fraudulently added to the electoral role. It comes after a meeting on 11 Mar 19 between the election commission and Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo’s brother and the media and communications director for his campaign.
• There were also allegations of voter fraud made by the Prabowo camp following the 2014 presidential election which the former general lost to Widodo. A lawsuit challenging the result of the election was rejected by the Constitutional Court.
• “What we see now is some people, some parties, trying to create distrust of the KPU, because it will lead to distrust of the process and result, and eventually trigger conflicts,” Budiman said on 12 Mar 19.

External Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/indonesia-says-poll-under-attack-from-chinese-russian-hackers

External Link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-election/indonesia-says-cyber-attacks-wont-disrupt-elections-idUSKBN1QU135