Dozens of VPN services in Russia have stopped working amid new…
Dozens of VPN services in Russia have stopped working amid new requirements from the Ministry of Digital Development. Mass outages have occurred in the operation of VPN services in Russia.
Consensus
- More than 20 VPN services in Russia experienced major disruptions on August 4–5.
- The disruptions were linked to blockages of IP addresses belonging to hosting providers used by VPN services.
- The blockages were not real-time but based on previously collected data.
- Some VPN providers managed to redirect users to working servers by August 5.
- The blockades coincided with discussions about new regulations from the Ministry of Digital Development (MinCyfry) regarding monitoring of IP addresses used by corporate and technical VPNs.
- Russian apps and services may have contributed to data collection for the blockades by identifying users with active VPNs.
Points of divergence
- Roskomnadzor restricted the operation of more than 20 VPN services, and the new wave of blockages is linked to tracking modules embedded in Russian websites and apps. — tg_varlamov_news
- The attack was massive in scale but not technically critical. — tg_tvrain
- The blockages were triggered by data collected from Russian apps, and the Ministry of Digital Development sent recommendations to companies to identify VPN users and report them to Roskomnadzor. — tg_paperpaper_ru
- The blockages affected entire subnets of hosting providers, impacting dozens of VPN services simultaneously. — tg_astrapress
- Political director of FBK Leonid Volkov called the blockage the largest in history and linked it to upcoming State Duma elections. — tg_echoonline_news
- The blockages occurred in the context of new MinCyfry proposals for continuous monitoring of IP addresses in the list of corporate and technical VPNs. — tg_sotavisionmedia
- Some providers claim the blockages were point-based rather than widespread. — tg_moscowtimes_ru
Coverage (9 sources)
- New wave of VPN service blocks — what to do? — Varlamov News
- Russian businesses and apps could have participated in collecting data for new VPN blocks — Paper VPN — Дождь
- Russian businesses and apps could have participated in data collection for new VPN blocks — Paper VPN — Дождь (Telegram)
- Russian applications may have helped collect data for VPN blocks that occurred two days ago — Бумага
- In Russia, more than 20 VPN services were blocked in two days — ASTRA
- In Russia, a malfunction occurred in the operation of popular VPN services — ЭХО / Новости
- In Russia, dozens of VPN services stopped working amid new requirements from the Ministry of Digital Development — SOTAvision
- Dozens of VPN services stopped working in Russia after new requirements from the Ministry of Digital Development to providers — The Moscow Times
- Control over VPN will be strengthened in Russia — Новости Москвы
Key entities
- Russia
- Roskomnadzor
- Exploit
- Ministry of Digital Development
- VPN services
- Paper VPN
- Paper
- Code.Ru
- VPN
- Wildberries
- Ozon
- Mikhail Klimarev
- Ksenia Sobchak Telegram channels
- Internet Society
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