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KPU websites face 'extraordinary' cyberattacks on voting day
The websites contain election information and data, including updates on polling station locations and the vote tally.
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A local poll administrator (KPPS) seals an envelope filled with ballot papers for the 2024 general election in the logistics warehouse at Cempaka Putih Sports Hall in Central Jakarta on Feb. 5, 2024. (Antara/Erlangga Bregas Prakoso)
The General Elections Commission (KPU) reported that its websites faced hundreds of millions of denial-of-service (DoS) cyberattacks during election day on Wednesday.
"There are hundreds of millions of DoS attacks. I’m not saying in the dozens, not just one, but hundreds of millions of attacks on the KPU websites. [The numbers] are extraordinary," said KPU commissioner Betty Epsilon Idroos on Wednesday.
A DoS is a cyberattack done by flooding network traffic on applications, servers, systems or websites. Generally, it is carried out to make server traffic run slower until it is unable to accommodate connections from other users, also known as an overload.
Betty said the website in question, kpu.go.id, held election information and data. She said attacks also occurred on other KPU sites.
"The website only contains information and data, not the [election] results. The results can be found on infopemilu [a website subdomain]. Almost all KPU-owned sites were attacked, and it was quite an attack on the kpu.go.id website," she explained.
However, Betty ensured that the KPU Cyber Security Task Force promptly handled the incident. Betty claimed that the website could slowly be accessed again.
"Alhamdulillah [thank God], today the recovery has started for the kpu.go.id website. So hopefully everything is under control and can be repaired by the KPU," said Betty.
The KPU website experienced access issues on Wednesday afternoon, where the site only displayed a “website is under maintenance” notice when opened.
Another KPU commissioner, Mochamad Afifuddin, confirmed that several KPU websites had been down. According to Afif, one of the reasons behind the issue was the high number of people accessing the KPU website simultaneously.
"Perhaps [this was also due to the] large volume of people accessing [the website]. Based on reports, millions of people tried to access the site, particularly those who want to search the location of polling stations," said Afif.
