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Indonesia says election targeted by Chinese, Russian hackers

Bloomberg Published on Wed, Mar 13, 2019 / 6:29 PM GMT+8

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(Mar 13): Chinese and Russian hackers are attacking Indonesia’s voter data base in a bid to disrupt the country’s upcoming presidential election, according to a senior election commission official.

As Indonesia prepares for simultaneous presidential and legislative polls on April 17, authorities are facing a wave of cyber incursions they say may be aimed at discrediting the polling process. The head of Indonesia’s General Elections Commission, Arief Budiman, said some of the attacks originated in Russia and China, and include attempts to “manipulate or modify” content as well as to create so-called ghost voters, or fake voter identities.

“They try to hack our system,” Budiman said in an interview in Jakarta on Tuesday. “Not only every day. Almost every hour,” he said, adding it was unclear whether the motive was “to disrupt Indonesia” or to help one of the candidates win. “Voter behaviour can be changed by de-legitimising the organiser of the election,” he said, referring to the General Elections Commission, known as KPU.