Russians Report Spike in Server Connection on Telegram and WhatsApp, Regulator Attributes Outage to DDoS Attack
Following a widespread internet outage, thousands of Russians have reported being unable to access dozens of applications and websites, including well-known messaging services like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Telegram, the monitoring tool Downdetector reported on Wednesday.
The disruption was attributed by the federal media regulator Roskomnadzor to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyberattack that was directed towards the telecom carriers in Russia.
A denial-of-service attack (DDoS) aims to take down a website by flooding it with malicious traffic.
The service reported that the message networks were operating regularly again and that the attack had been defeated.
According to Russian media, the affected websites also included Wikipedia, Skype, and the social networking app Discord.
Around 2:00 PM on Wednesday, users began experiencing connectivity problems, according to state-affiliated business daily RBC.
It added that although the majority of outage reports originated from Russian cities, some users also reported difficulty using Telegram from Finland and Kazakhstan.
Wednesday’s disruption to the messaging applications, which are extensively used in Russia, came weeks after Russian internet monitoring groups reported a widespread outage on the availability of video hosting site YouTube, as Russian officials increased their criticism of the website.
“The disruption is related to a DDoS attack on Russian telecom operators,” the service said in a statement, without saying who might have been responsible.
Roskomnadzor claimed that the widespread failures were caused by “a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack on Russian communications operators,” which Klimaryov denounced as “a lie,” pointing out that it is impossible to target every phone operator simultaneously in a DDoS attack.
We earlier reported that Russian users of Signal messenger have experienced service outages, according to monitoring websites Downradar and Sboy. rf.
The outage started early on Friday, August 9 and was first brought to attention by the independent news source iStories.
