Chaos in Moscow after Anonymous hackers hijacked Yandex app to hail hundreds of taxis at the same location

Acting in conjunction with the IT group Army of Ukraine, Anonymous hackers managed to hijack the Yandex app to hail hundreds of taxis at an address on a busy boulevard in central Moscow.

Yandex, Russia’s largest taxi service, probably has hundreds of cars constantly “patrolling” the streets and boulevards of Moscow’s capital. Upgraded but not ready to deal with a surprise attack, the state-owned company has fallen easy victim to a cyber-attack on its eponymous smartphone app used to take taxi orders.

‼️#Moscow Had a stressful day yesterday. The largest taxi service in Russia ‘Yandex Taxi’ was hacked by the #Anonymous collective. A traffic jam took place in the center of Moscow when dozens of taxis were sent by the hackers to the address on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. #OpRussia pic.twitter.com/6fp1hp0f7r

– Anonymous TV 🇺🇦 (@YourAnonTV) September 2, 2022

Designed to automatically distribute incoming requests, the computer system simultaneously called hundreds of Yandex tolls at an address located along Kutuzovsky Prospekt, one of the busiest avenues in central Moscow, with the resulting traffic jam taking nearly two hours to be completely cleared by police crews.

Following the event reported on September 1, Taxi company representatives said they would address the issue of compensation for those affected, while promising to take security measures to avoid similar incidents in the future.