Kaspersky Lab co-founder, head of InfoWatch, Natalia Kasperskaya, on the morning of April 4 male In its Telegram channel, Roskomnadzor “in the frenzy of fighting against block bypass, shot down half of Runet’s services.”
We are talking about a large-scale failure on April 3, which mainly affected applications and banking services. For several hours, Russian residents were unable to transfer money, withdraw cash or pay for purchases with cards. The problem affected customers of Sberbank, VTB, Alfa Bank, T-Bank, Gazprombank and others; Glitches were also observed in the operation of the Faster Payment System (FPS).
According to Kasperskaya, all this was the result of attempts by Roskomnadzor (RKN) to block VPN services:
No, this is not a hostile raid or attack by third parties or evil foreign hackers. This is our dear RKN, which finally put up a childish battle against tunneling and traffic protection services, also known as VPNs.
The entrepreneur explained that she discussed this issue with specialists who said that “there is no technical possibility to block a VPN without completely disrupting the operation of the Internet.”
“Take screenshots of interesting sites, withdraw as much money as possible and get ready to listen to radio messages about external enemies blocking our beloved Runet,” Kasperskaya suggested. She also criticized the idea of introducing administrative responsibility for the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), which had previously been discussed by the head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadiyev, as a worse alternative to other restrictions.
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But already on the evening of April 4, Kasperskaya published New job. In it, she said that she spoke with the head of Roskomnadzor, Andrei Lipov. He allegedly explained in detail “with examples” why the failure on April 3 was not due to the actions of management. He linked the problem with the operation of Sberbank’s services. Same version nominated Sources from Kommersant newspaper.
As a result, Kasperskaya apologized to Roskomnadzor:
What do you want to say here? First, I apologize to the esteemed administration for my hasty conclusions. Second, it is important to note that citizens really lack direct communication with the state – with the departments that make or implement blocking decisions. Neither the Ministry of Digital Development nor the RKN have issued a public explanation for what happened. Sberbank’s explanations are very poor and closed; It is impossible to understand from them what happened. Third, the timing of the holiday coincided with the minister’s statements regarding blocking VPNs. Therefore, the logical connection between these events did not arise for me alone.
In her opinion, the authorities must explain to people what is happening, “otherwise there will inevitably be speculation, terrible rumours, and a barrage of the worst assumptions.”
Lipov’s conversation with Kasperskaya was not the only effort by Roskomnadzor to remove reputational damage caused by rumors about responsibility for the failure. The agency also asked several Russian publications and Telegram channels to remove posts stating that the problems were caused by anti-VPN. In particular, Forbes and Mash removed their posts. The Dvach telegram channel also reported on Roskomnadzor’s request to remove posts about the connection between failure and the ban. The notice said that publishing such information “aims to destabilize the social and political situation in the Russian Federation.”
This is not the first time that Roskomnadzor has tried to pressure the media to remove negative information about the agency’s work. Thus, on March 30, Beware, News editors received a notification asking them to delete a post in the Telegram channel, recounting condition Forbes reported that RKN is facing difficulties in blocking websites. The article stated that the administration had stopped dealing with the blocking, and that the traffic filtering devices installed in the operators’ networks (TSPU) were overloaded.
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Cover image: Mikhail Klementiev / RIA Novosti / Sputnik / Profimedia