OREANDA-NEWS. The Russian Ministry of Digital Development confirmed cases of hacking of accounts on the portal «Gosuslugi» (can be translated as «State Services), which were used for voting in the primaries of «Edinaya Russia». As the press service of the department told «Kommersant», the investigation showed that these actions «were committed in relation to poorly protected, simple passwords or passwords that coincided with passwords to other resources», the newspaper writes on Friday, June 4.

The press service of the Ministry of Finance pointed out that to prevent hacking, «the ministry recommends using complex unique passwords for each service and two-factor identification on public services, updating operating systems and using antivirus programs».

Meanwhile, an expert on online security, the founder of the company «Internet Search» Igor Bederov stressed in an interview with «Kommersant» that it is possible to intercept the management of a personal account on the portal «Gosuslug» and with two-factor identification, as attackers can reissue the SIM card of the account owner or otherwise take possession of the access code, which is transmitted to the user via SMS.

One of the first cases of unauthorized access to accounts on «Gosuslugi» on behalf of the Personal Data Processing Center of «Edinaya Russia» was told on June 2 by the host of «Echo of Moscow» Arina Borodina.

According to the journalist and a number of other users, in their profiles on «Gosuslugi», the attackers changed the registration addresses (for example, instead of the Moscow region — to the Chelyabinsk region) and, without the knowledge of the account owners, an unauthorized transition was made to the site of the primaries of «Edinaya Russia», held from 24 to 30 May on the eve of the elections to the State Duma.

To participate in the online voting on the primaries website, you had to log in through your personal account on the state services website. At the end of the vote, the party reported a record number of participants — about 11 million people.