Russia

January 24, 2025

A significant cyberattack hit MegaFon, one of Russia’s largest mobile and internet operators. The failure in Megafon’s operation occurred on the morning of January 24. The cause was a carpet DDoS attack on the mobile operator. Forbes reports the attack was carried out by one of the groups of “politically motivated hackers” (the IT army of Ukraine). The attack “was effective, and degradation of services was observed at the international level.”

Later the Russian media revealed the true cause of the disruptions – a highly effective “carpet-bombing DDoS attack” targeting MegaFon. While the company claimed its network was operating “smoothly,” it admitted to “possible access issues” caused by factors beyond its control.

February 26, 2025

Beeline experienced a failure due to a DDoS attack. About 6,000 users complained about the problems on Downdetector. “Specialists are taking all necessary measures to minimize possible consequences and maintain stable operation of services,” the operator’s press service said.

January 21, 2025

Rostelecom, a major Russian telecommunications provider, says it’s investigating a cyberattack on one of its contractors. A hacker group calling itself Silent Crow, earlier released a batch of allegedly stolen company data. The company admitted it had previously detected “information security incidents” at one of its contractors. According to Rostelecom, the unnamed contractor is responsible for maintaining its corporate website and procurement portal. Both were reportedly targeted by hackers.

March 3, 2025

Some Russians had their internet disrupted on Monday due to a targeted distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the telecom Beeline — the second major attack on the Moscow-based company in recent weeks. Beeline confirmed the attack to local media following reports from several outage-tracking services and user complaints. The provider has more than 44 million subscribers.

Data from the internet monitoring service Downdetector indicates that most Beeline users in Russia faced difficulties accessing the company’s mobile app, while some also reported website outages, notification failures and internet disruptions.

Russia’s communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, reported that subscribers in Moscow and surrounding regions had filed mass complaints over connectivity issues following Monday’s incident.

October 7, 2024

Russian state television and radio broadcasting company VGTRK was hit by a cyberattack on Monday. The company confirmed in a statement to local news agencies that its operations were disrupted due to the attack.

Local media reported that the broadcast of several television channels owned by VGTRK, including Russia 1 and Russia 24, was cut off mid-program and resumed nearly an hour later. An anonymous source at the company told the Russian media outlet Gazeta.ru that the hackers erased data from the company’s servers, including backups. This was not independently verified.