Anonymous, a collective of hackers and activists, reportedly hacked the Russian telecoms agency Roscomnadzor, which censors pirate sites and media. The breach leaked 820GB worth of data, which has yet to be analyzed. Anonymous claims it obtained 360,000 files from the servers. Although it’s too soon to know for sure, this hack may have revealed Russia’s secret about censorship and pirated websites.
Russian authorities have been trying to restrict internet content deemed dangerous by the state for years. We’ve concentrated on the niche of copyright issues, but there are many other important issues to be aware of, including ‘dangerous’ content on social media.
Russia is known for its censorship of sites that offer pirated movies and TV shows. One such way Russia achieves this is by using powerful filtering and detection systems to block these websites that refuse to abide by copyright laws.
Roscomnadzor blocks pirate sites with powerful blocking and detection systems. These agencies and their technologies are used to filter and block Russian pirate sites, which usually refuse to remove movies and TV shows.
It is important to note that the same systems can be used to block any website or service that runs contrary to the Kremlin’s vision for Russia. One example of this would be Tor. Putin has been increasingly using these powers since invading Ukraine.
A law passed by the government has effectively outlawed the freedom of journalists, leading to a big crackdown on social media. The agency in charge, Roscomnadzor, has blocked Twitter, Facebook, and any news outlets that failed to toe the state propaganda line.
Censorship-breaking VPNs are coming under attack in Russia, preventing accurate reporting from reaching the country. Now, as Russian forces face stubborn resistance in Ukraine, Russian authorities themselves have been assaulted.
Anonymous Hacks Roscomnadzor
In a recent post on Substack, Distributed Denial of Secrets announced that an anonymous source has found a trove of data from Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media known as Roscomnadzor.
In a recent data leak, Roscomnadzor, the Russian censor, leaked IPs in the Bashkortostan region. The data came with a hefty size of 820GB and contained files. The data is huge, so it will take time to examine it. However, in this brief rundown, DDoSecrets has revealed some juicy bits of information.
What’s In The Leak?
The release of this data comes in two parts, each containing files from different time periods. The first, with 363,994 files, spans 43,593 directories and has a total size of 526.9GB. It also contains fresh data, up to March 5 of this year.
The recent leak includes a massive amount of files, some as recent as March 5, 2022. One of the breach’s most interesting parts is that it contains fresh data. Some of the files are dated within the last week of the invasion.
The second part of the data released is two directories containing raw data files in a proprietary format for two databases. The first database is legal issues and the other could be human resource related. These two directories together exceed 290 GB, so DDoSecrets is still working on extracting the data. Weighing in at 290GB, for a proprietary database. The first database, according to assessments, deals with legal issues, while the other one could be related to HR practices.
It appears that DDoSecrets wants to make the files public now to ensure Russian citizens can access them before Russia disconnects with the wider internet. If the ‘Sovereign RuNet’ is introduced, it will mean that Russia will disconnect from the internet.
Preserving The Data for Ordinary Russian Citizens
The source, a part of Anonymous, felt Russian people needed to have access to the truth about their government. The source also felt that they should not be cut off from the outside world, and independent media.
“We are publishing this release in anticipation of Russia potentially being cut off from the global internet on March 11, and hope Russians will have time to download this data, before then.”
If you want to take a look at the leaked data that has been collected it can be found here