Russia targeted VPNs, but ultimately sent banks crashing

Not surprisingly, the Russian web is not famous for its free operation, as Moscow is trying to bring it under more and more serious control. Things took a spectacular turn after the war launched against Ukraine at the beginning of 2022, when the Kremlin began to shut people off from reality for good, so that most independent news sources and social media sites became inaccessible.

To get around this, users started using so-called virtual private networks, or VPNs – they can be used to bypass Russian censorship. With VPNs, a user can essentially “move” their digital activity, thereby browsing as if they were in, say, the United States. Not by the way: the Russian authorities also find it more difficult to search for someone.

https://Fbhtechinfo.hu/tudomany/20260320_oroszorszag-internet-korlatozasa-torvenyek-kimaradasok

Of course, this also bothers Moscow, and in recent years they have tried to attack VPN providers several times, but they have not been able to show any meaningful results in this area.

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, reported on Saturday that Russia tried to crack down on VPNs again, but it went so wrong that it ended up knocking out banks across the country. For this reason, it was only possible to pay in cash for a while, writes a Bloomberg.

In recent years, it is not uncommon in the country for certain services to stop suddenly due to the actions of the government, or for the Internet to go down for a while. This is an additional loss, while they try to get rid of things they don’t like or that they call illegal.

In the recent period, Moscow has indicated that it wants to reduce the use of VPNs, so Friday’s operation could also be part of this. According to reports published in the Russian media, disturbances occurred in the operation of several banking services, which may have resulted from the overload of the filtering systems operated by the Russian telecommunications authority.

https://Fbhtechinfo.hu/tudomany/20260402_oroszorszag-apple-fizetesi-szolgaltatasok-leallitasa-elofizetesek-vasarlasok

Durov believes that the Russian restrictive measures do not achieve their goal, and in fact: since the crackdown on Telegram, more than 50 million use the messenger with a VPN.

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