Russian Internet watchdog blocks hundreds of VPN services

Online freedom 

VPN services are in big demand in Russia. Millions of people use them to circumvent the blockage of websites and social media imposed by the state. At the same time, Russian state organisations have also increased their spending on VPNs in order to securely exchange information over their internal networks. 

A VPN, short for virtual private network, is a security tool that creates a secure, encrypted internet connection, and they are often used to mask locations and identities online. As such, their popularity has accelerated in Russia in recent years.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many news media channels, websites and social media were blocked. For example, since 2022 Twitter and Facebook have been blocked in Russia after the government passed a bill that criminalizes ‘fake’ reports against the war in Ukraine, the Guardian reported. 

Furthermore, the Russian state has acted to suppress tools that could help to access these blocked websites. Russia's infamous internet watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has blocked 197 VPN services to date, Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported on Thursday.

Nevertheless, VPN usage within Russian households continues to increase, the Forbes reports. In 2022, the amount of VPN users doubled in comparison to the previous year and grew a further 37% in 2023.

But it is a challenge for the state to isolate the Russian Internet when there is modern technology: 

“Those VPN companies who are not adjusting their technology to Russia, have already been blocked," - Stanislav Shakirov, CTO of Roskomsvoboda, the Russian NGO that supports open self-regulatory networks and protection of digital rights of Internet users, told The Barents Observer, 

“But there are many VPN services who aim their work for Russian [users] and thus use different protocols. For example, AmneziaWG - these ones can’t be blocked now.”

Hacker attacks

Stanislav Shakirov explained that the ability to help avoid the state-imposed blocks is the most “primitive” role a VPN has. VPNs are also used to secure internal corporate networks, which are in high demand by the Russian state due to regular hacker attacks. 

In the first nine months of 2024, Russian state office expenses on VPN connections increased by 683% to RUB 14.1 billion (€134,5 millions). The largest share — RUB 9.8 billion (€93,5 millions) — was spent by the Moscow Department of Information Technology, news website Kommersant reports.

“Since the beginning of the war (in Ukraine), huge amounts of hacker attacks are happening from both sides. Russian hackers attack Ukraine, Ukrainian hackers attack Russia," - Stanislav Shakirov told The Barents Observer, - “There is a huge amount of DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks on equipment, infrastructure, anything that's in the public internet. So it's reasonable to try to hide it all in the internal corporate networks.”

Experts the news website Kommersant spoke with also attribute the growth in government demand for VPNs to the increase in DDoS attacks:

"In the last couple of years… we have recorded a multiple increase in data transfer via secure VPN channels," says Vladimir Volkov, the representative of Rostelecom - Russia’s largest provider of digital services - told Kommersant. “Large businesses and government customers have begun to pay more attention to the security of IT infrastructure," continues Mr. Volkov. He also attributes the growth in demand for such services over the last two years to attempts to steal personal data, Kommersant reports.

“We are seeing extremely high growth among government customers,” - Russian digital services provider Megafon told Kommersant.