On Thursday morning, Moscow’s busy Fili district turned the location of a visitors jam in contrast to any earlier than it. (by way of ) stories hackers used Russia’s Yandex Taxi ride-hailing app to order dozens of drivers to protection on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, one of many metropolis’s primary thoroughfares. The act induced visitors on a part of the already congested road to return to a standstill for about 40 minutes whereas Yandex labored to handle the scenario.

“On the morning of September 1st, Yandex Taxi encountered an attempt by attackers to disrupt the service — several dozen drivers received bulk orders to the Fili district of Moscow,” a Yandex spokesperson informed Motherboard. In a separate assertion shared with Russia’s state-owned TASS information company, Yandex mentioned it reworked its routing algorithm following the assault to forestall related incidents from occurring sooner or later. The occasion is likely one of the first identified cases of hackers exploiting a ride-hailing app to create a visitors jam.

Several Twitter accounts claiming affiliation with Anonymous say the hacktivist collective is behind the incident. On Friday, one mentioned the group labored with the , a volunteer group fashioned firstly of the warfare, to hold out the assault.

Anonymous beforehand claimed accountability for a cyberattack that , together with these belonging to the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defence. “Faced with this series of attacks that Ukraine has been suffering from the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, we could not help but support the Ukrainian people,” the group mentioned on the time.