Telegram, WhatsApp Outages In Russia Spark Speculation

Brief outages of Telegram and WhatsApp were reported in Russia yesterday, with the country’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, attributing the disruption to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyberattack targeting Russian telecom operators.

A DDoS attack is designed to overwhelm a website with excessive internet traffic, forcing it offline. According to The Moscow Times (TMT), Roskomnadzor claimed that the attack caused “large-scale disruption” but was repelled within an hour, allowing normal service to resume shortly after.

Reuters confirmed that the cyberattack was successfully repelled and that the messaging networks were restored to full functionality. They also reported that other online platforms, such as Wikipedia, Skype, and Discord, had also experienced disruptions.

However, as reported by TMT, some internet experts suspect the government’s involvement. They suggest that the authorities may have attempted to block the messaging services themselves amid increasing efforts to tighten internet censorship.

TMT reports that Stanislav Shakirov, technical director at Roskomsvoboda, suggested that Roskomnadzor’s attempt to block Telegram may have caused disruptions to other internet services, similar to a 2018 incident.

TMT also adds that Filipp Kulin, who monitors Roskomnadzor’s blocked websites, dismissed the DDoS attack claim as “nonsense,” arguing that a true DDoS would impact all operators, not just specific services.

Reuters notes that this incident follows recent reports from Russian internet monitoring services of a mass outage on YouTube, another platform under increasing scrutiny by Russian authorities. Additionally, Signal users in Russia reported glitches with the secure messenger app earlier this month.

The disruption to Telegram and WhatsApp, which are widely used in Russia, further highlights the ongoing tension between the Russian government and tech companies. In 2022, Moscow labeled Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, an “extremist” organization, leading to the ban of Facebook and Instagram within the country.

While these services can still be accessed using virtual private networks (VPNs), the recent outages suggest that the Russian authorities may be seeking to tighten their control over online communication.