Russian media are reporting that there is an ongoing cyber-attack on Russia’s Central Election Commission, targeting its information centre.

According to the Commission’s secretary, the Central Election Committee’s website had earlier come under a DDoS attack from 15 countries.

“We are registering what is in fact a cyber-attack on our information centre,” the commission’s secretary, Maya Grishina, said.

The commission’s website was attacked soon after voting began. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack peaked between 2am and 5am on Sunday, chairperson Ella Pamfilova said.

The attack originated from 15 countries, according to Pamfilova.

The first polls opened in Russia’s Far East at 20:00 GMT on Saturday, March 17, and the last polls in the Kaliningrad exclave will close at 18:00 GMT on Sunday, March 18.

The first round of the 2018 Russian presidential election will be contested by a total of eight candidates on March 18. Should no candidate reach a majority, a second round will take place three weeks later scheduled for April 8.

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