ASTRA: Hackers claim breach of Russia’s Central Election Commission

Hackers have breached the infrastructure of Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) and a contractor developing the country’s GAS “Vybory” 2.0 electoral system, ASTRA reports.

An anonymous hacker group known as CikLeak claimed it had gained access to the infrastructure of the CEC and its contractors. Among the entities allegedly affected was Tsifrotech, a subsidiary of state-controlled telecommunications company Rostelecom that is developing GAS “Vybory” 2.0.

The reported breach resulted in the leakage of internal company documents, source code, call recordings, passwords and employees’ correspondence, according to ASTRA.

The hackers provided an archive of the documents they obtained to the editorial office of Important Stories. Journalists at the outlet confirmed the authenticity of the archive, according to the report.

GAS “Vybory” was launched in early 2026, and the elections to the State Duma of the ninth convocation will be the first federal election campaign to use the system.

The reported breach comes after CEC Chair Ella Pamfilova said in August that GAS “Vybory” could not be hacked.

At the same time, Meduza noted that only several hours before reports of the alleged breach emerged, the CEC had announced that it was conducting a review of vulnerabilities in GAS “Vybory,” the remote electronic voting system and the video surveillance system.

By Tamilla Hasanova