Election Interference: Ukraine Security Service shores up for voting hacks

World
Europe

02:13

Ukrainians go to the polls on Sunday to vote for a new president. Ahead of the elections, cyber security is of great concern. An army of online experts is gearing up to prevent hackers from infiltrating the voting system. Our correspondent Stephanie Freid is in Kiev to tell us more.

Election Interference. It's a polite term for hacking. As Ukrainians head to the polls this Sunday, teams of behind-the-scenes specialists will be taking up positions in situation rooms where they'll be watching the virtual realm for espionage and cyber-terrorism attempts.

EVGENIY SHYMKIV DEPUTY CYBER SECURITY CHIEF, UKRAINE SECURITY SERVICE "Hacker groups choose the timing for attacks based on their goals. If they aim to scramble election information, then the attack will happen on election day."

Ukraine's security service nightmare is a day-of-vote election commission hack that skews results and invalidates the vote outcome.

STEPHANIE FREID KIEV, UKRAINE "It has already happened. Days before Ukraine's 2014 presidential election, Russian hackers infiltrated the central election system and skewed results. Administrators caught the tampering one hour before erroneous results were announced."

Ukraine has become a key "Russia versus the West" contested country. Ukraine's next president may be a decisive force in reunifying the country.

MICHAEL, CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST KIEV, UKRAINE "There are three divisions, at least 40-thousand people along Ukraine's border ready to invade the country at a moment's notice. They need an official precedent for this. They are trying to destabilize the elections through cyber attacks and psychological warfare. And all they are waiting for is a justification for war."

Security operatives say the Russia versus Ukraine standoff depicts the state of combined conventional and high tech weapons in modern warfare. Stephanie Freid, CGTN, Kiev, Ukraine.