‘Cyber attack brought down national election website’

Arolen S.A., a firm contracted by private telecommunications company UNE to provide technical services for the recent congressional elections, blamed a cyber attack for downing the national elections webpage of the National Registry.

The National Registry’s website and the website publishing the election results were down for most of Sunday and Monday, restricting the public’s access to up-to-date election information.

According to Arolen’s General Director, Ivan Ribon, the website’s failure should not be blamed on UNE or the National Registrar, but on his firm, reported W Radio on Wednesday.

On Monday, the National Registrar accepted responsibility for some of the post-election irregularities, but also put some of the blame on the telecommunications company UNE.

Ribon went on to explain that the job for publishing the up-to-date election information belonged to his firm, Arolen, and as a result, it was his responsibility.

According to Ribon, however, Arolen’s failures were the result of a cyber attack meant to overload its systems. “After preliminary analysis.. we found that on Sunday, after 4:00 PM, the webpage for the National Registry was the target of a concentrated attack… for a little more than 12 hours.”

He concluded, however, that the contents of the page, including election results, were not altered or put in any risk during the attack.

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