Maduro creates the National Cybersecurity Council to confront “cyber attacks”

Caracas, Aug 12 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday ordered the creation of the National Cybersecurity Council to “confront cyber attacks” and “protect the country’s technological systems”after the electoral body reported a hack that – it claimed – delayed the transmission of voting data from the July 28 elections, the official result of which gave the president the victory.

In a meeting with the Defense Council, broadcast on state channel VTV, Maduro criticized the Carter Center, which monitors the elections, for dismissing the hacking of the system, which has prevented, according to the electoral body, the publication, to date, of disaggregated results confirming Maduro’s victory.

The president said that the Carter Center needed to “deny or cover up” the “cyber attack,” which had “its maximum expression” on Sunday, July 28, although – he assured – the entire technological platform of the National Electoral Council (CNE) remains “under attack.”

However, the Carter Center, which stated that Venezuela’s elections cannot be considered “democratic,” was invited by the CNE “because of the seriousness it shows (…) in this matter,” according to Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, during a meeting with its members prior to the elections.

The institution declared last Wednesday that There is no evidence of hacking in the electoral system and reiterated that, after analyzing data, the standard-bearer of the largest opposition coalition, Edmundo González Urrutia, is the winner of the elections.

The anti-Chavez bloc claims that the result announced by the electoral body is fraudulent, since it collected “83.5%” of the electoral records that – it insists – give González Urrutia as the winner, while the Maduro government considers these documents false.

.