Cyberattacks have threatened elections in several countries, and one of the major hacking cases was alleged foreign interference using cyber networks during the US presidential elections in 2016. Any form of interference in the election results, be it through money politics or cyberattacks, could endanger democratic well-being of the targeted country. Hence, cybersecurity must be taken seriously to take precautionary measures and prevent threat of cyberattacks. On April 17, 2019, Indonesia will hold simultaneous presidential and legislative elections believed to be among the most complex and largest elections in the world. Indonesia is the world`s fourth most populous nation, with some 260 million people, and the world`s largest archipelagic country, with over 17 thousand islands. Four months prior to the elections, cyberattacks have already increased in Indonesia, according to the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN).
“From January to October 2018, BSSN had detected 207.9 million trojan attacks and 36 million malware activities, mostly targeting domains of ac.id, co.id, and go.id,” Djoko Setiadi, the chairman of BSSN, revealed while addressing participants of a seminar themed “Materializing Conducive Cyber Space To Support Implementation of the 2019 Legislative and Presidential Elections,” organized in Jakarta on December 12, 2018.
Earlier, the agency had reported that a total of 143.6 million cyberattacks occurred during the January-June 2018 period.
Moreover, some 2,363 complaints were lodged by the public, of which 61 percent were related to cyber fraud.
He expressed concern over cyberattacks having developed fast, even swifter than the progress in technology and the capability to take precautionary measures, so it is risky and could trigger a crisis in every field at a massive scale of dissemination.
Full Article: Year ender – Protecting Indonesian elections from cyberattacks – ANTARA News.