Hundreds of taxis sent to fake pick-up point as hackers gridlock Moscow

Moscow was gridlocked this week after hackers requested hundreds of taxis to the same pick-up point.

Video footage has been doing the rounds on social media showing huge rows of traffic as dozens of cabs try to make it past each other – not realising they'd all been sent to the same address.

According to Forbes.ru, the hackers had intercepted Yandex Taxi, Russia's answer to Uber, causing congestion on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a major six-lane road that runs through the city.

The incident unfolded yesterday (1 September) and left drivers stuck for around 40 minutes.

In a statement to the publication, a spokesperson for Yandex.Go said: "On the morning of September 1, Yandex Taxi encountered an attempt by attackers to disrupt the service — several dozen drivers received bulk orders to the Fili region."

The firm said it is taking action to improve its algorithm to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future, but that hasn't stopped the online community from sharing the disruption.

While it's not known who's behind the attack, Anonymous has uploaded a number of posts on the prank including a Daily Star article that claimed the hacktivist group was responsible.

It later tweeted a screenshot of one of the images used in the article, writing: "We shared the above dailystar article because it has our current favorite 'evil anonymous hacker' image used by the press in a long time."

Anonymous also shared a clip of the traffic jam, simply writing 'LOL' as the caption.

Dozens of people have commented on the posts, with one writing, "I don’t want to laugh," alongside a laughing emoji.

"Well, someone had to drive Putin's big ass out of the Kremlin, right?" said another, while a third added, "Excellent, most excellent."

Earlier this year, Anonymous promised to continue hacking Russia until the country ends its attack on Ukraine.

The hacking collective has heavily criticised Vladimir Putin’s invasion, announcing it was ‘officially in cyber war against the Russian government’ on the day the attack started.

Since then, the group has been involved in various hacking attacks in a bid to help spread information about what Russia describes as a ‘special military operation’. 

Back in April, it emerged that the group had leaked the personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, disclosing personal information such as names, date of birth, addresses, unit affiliation and passport numbers. 

In a tweet shared in the same month, it said: "The hacking will continue until Russia stops their aggression."

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