9 Mar 2022 00:42

Failures on websites of state agencies occur due to hacking of widget integrated with them - Russian Digital Development Ministry

MOSCOW. March 9 (Interfax) - Disruptions in the operation of the federal agencies' websites occurred on Tuesday evening due to the hacking of the service (widget) of the monitoring system of state agencies' websites, which is being maintained by the Ministry of Economic Development and is integrated into the websites of a number of state agencies, the press service for the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media told Interfax.

The service was restored within an hour.

"The websites of state agencies are under serious protection and round-the-clock monitoring by cybersecurity teams. It is difficult to compromise these websites directly, so hackers attack resources through external services and thus gain access to demonstrate incorrect content," the press service said.

Hackers hacked an application (widget), which is loaded on the websites of state bodies from an external resource, the press service added. The widget is installed to collect visitor statistics. "After hacking the widget, hackers were able to publish incorrect content on the pages of the websites. The incident was promptly localized," the ministry.

Currently, the websites of state agencies are operational. Content, including users' requests and personal data, remained intact and under reliable protection, the Digital Development Ministry said.

Earlier, a number of media outlets reported that hackers had hacked the websites of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the Federal Bailiff Service, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the Culture Ministry, the Energy Ministry, the Federal State Statistics Service, and a number of other agencies.