UK Edition
Moscow gridlock as hackers send dozens of taxis to Hotel Ukraine
Prank caused havoc on the roads of the Russian capital, as around 100 yellow cars all pulled up along the same busy road
Western anti-war hackers caused havoc on the roads of Moscow on Thursday when they targeted a taxi company and sent dozens of drivers to the same Hotel Ukraine pick-up address.
One video showed around 100 yellow cars working for Yandex Taxi all pulling over along the same busy road that runs past the Hotel Ukraine, jamming up the lanes.
“Drivers spent about 40 minutes in traffic due to fake orders,” a spokesman for Yandex Taxi said. “The algorithm for detecting and preventing such attacks has already been improved to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
On social media, bystanders said that the attack caused two-hour traffic jams across Moscow.
The Hotel Ukraine was built by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1950s and is one of seven brooding gothic towers that stand sentinel around central Moscow.
For years, catching a taxi in Moscow meant hailing a so-called "gypsy cab" by standing on the side of the street with your thumb up and negotiating a price with any car that pulled over.
But with smartphones and apps taking over, Yandex is now the largest taxi service in Moscow, operating in a similar way to Uber.
Anonymous claims credit for attack
The hacking group Anonymous claimed credit for the prank. “Moscow had a stressful day yesterday,” read a post on the AnonymousTV Twitter account, which added that the "Anonymous collective” was responsible.
Anonymous, a loose alliance of Western-based hackers, has previously declared a digital war on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and has hacked various ministries and TV stations.
Yandex is Russia's foremost technology company and, with its Russian-language search engine, has been talked up as the Russian answer to Google.
But the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February crashed its momentum.
Thousands of techies have quit Russia, plans for expansion outside Russia have been scrapped and analysts have questioned whether Yandex can service its debt.
US-based Uber owns a 29 per cent stake in Yandex Taxi, which it says it wants to sell.