A Russian mainstream news site has reported that in the first six months of 2024, 140 million Russian mobile numbers and 46 million email addresses have been leaked to the Internet.
Between January and June this year, almost 150 separate data leaks resulted in these substantial breaches, according to a report by Russia’s data leak intelligence and darknet monitoring service, DLBI. The DLBI statistics contrast with the authorities’ claims of control over the situation.
Despite a reduction in the number of individual leaks compared to the same period in 2023, the volume of information appearing on networks increased by 14 percent. Annual identity theft in Russia has grown at approximately 40 percent per year since DLBI began studying the issue in 2019.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications, information technology, and mass media supervisory body, reported about 70 cases of personal data leaks in 2024, down from 110 the previous year. However, 600 million records entered the public domain in 2024 compared to 200 million last year, indicating that data on almost every Russian citizen is now publicly available.
According to DLBI, around 46 percent of leaks came from e-commerce activity, 16 percent from retail activity, and about 10 percent from online searches or entertainment resources. The financial sector saw the highest volume of data loss, with more than 80 million records accessed without authorization in the first two months of the year.
The President of Russia’s Association of Internet Trading Companies (AKIT), Artem Sokolov, said that his members have invested heavily in technology to protect their information systems. He noted that many online trading market players are implementing strict confidentiality processes to prevent data from being linked to known leaks.
Roskomnadzor attributed most of the leaks to third-party suppliers who fail to provide adequate security, and stated it is working with industry to develop legislation mandating standards for electronic data handling. Sokolov remarked that such legislation is long overdue but might be too late for the 258 million registered Russian mobile phone users.
Source: “The Electronic Data of Nearly Every Russian Has Been Leaked – Moscow’s Tech Watchdog”.
