Millions of Russians are acquiring independent information about the war in Ukraine through VPN connections while censorship is intensifying. The United States has increased its support for service companies.
Demand for VPN services in Russia has grown exponentially since the country invaded Ukraine in late February. It is estimated that six million VPN services have been downloaded in Russia since the attack.
Russia has tightened censorship to the extreme. Western news sites are being closed more and more, and it is difficult for Russians to get independent information about the war started by Russia.
The distribution of Western VPN services to Russia is not in itself a new phenomenon, but since the attack, more services have been distributed than before.
– By providing VPN connections, the aim is to make perforated cheese out of Russia’s information bubble, from which access to information other than what the Russian management wants can be accessed through VPN connections, Aalto University’s cyber security working life professor At Jarno Liml says.
VPN services help users lose their identity and location. They can be used to avoid censorship and to circumvent the barriers that the Russian authorities have blocked from accessing the websites they have banned.
VPN connections are a critical target for Russia
Evaluating the provision of VPN services in London Top10VPN’s (you switch to another service) According to Russia, demand for services grew by 2,088 percent in Russia from mid-February to March.
The organization’s conservative estimate is that VPN services were downloaded in Russia at least six million times after the country invaded Ukraine.
Limnekl considers the assessment to be realistic. However, there is no precise information on the distribution of VPN connections to Russia and the number of downloads.
– These are things that are not told to the public. In any case, various data sources have confirmed that the demand for various VPN connections is high in Russia. People want them and awareness of them has grown, I understand.
In practice, information about VPN services has been disseminated, for example, in the popular Telegram messaging application in Russia.
– Within Russia can share information. In distribution channels within Russia, VPN solutions are brought out there and people download and use them, Limnagl says.
However, VPN connections are not completely secure for users.
– The essential question is how well the connections are protected, so that Russian intelligence organizations cannot see who is using the connections. What is important from Russia’s point of view is what kind of information and what things are moving through VPN connections, Limnagl says.
– In view of the information war, monitoring VPN connections and trying to break them is a critical target for Russia.
The US has supported VPN services with at least millions
Reuters has spoken to the CEOs of three American companies that provide VPN services to Russians, as well as representatives of a financial organization backed by the U.S. government.
Of these, Lantern now has 1.5 million users a month in Russia, up from about five million worldwide before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Between 2015 and 2021, the three companies received $ 4.8 million, or $ 4.6 million, in U.S. government support. Since the end of February, funding has been increased by almost half, Reuters sources say. No specific amounts are mentioned.
Limnekl does not consider the amount to be particularly large.
– Based on this information, the amounts are not entirely huge. It is not very significant in product development. For example, Microsoft invests $ 4 billion a year in security.
In Russia, cyber security means a whole different thing than in the West
In addition to the war of aggression in Russia, the censorship is based on the fact that in Russia, the cyber world and cyber security traditionally mean a completely different thing than in the West, Limnagl states.
In the West, cybersecurity means, for example, hacking, firewalls and technical operations in general. In Russia, it is psychology and information space management.
– In Russia, the cyber world is primarily information space management. It’s a struggle over who controls the information that people see. On the basis of information, people’s reality and imagination are built, ie awareness of things.
After the attack, this has become even more pronounced.
– During the spring, Russia has systematically tried to tighten the state leadership’s grip on what information the Russians see. This ring now seems to be tightening constantly.
Russia is not the only country to which the United States shares VPN connections.
“The first of the other countries that comes to mind are the authoritarian states of the Middle East, where the state administration is trying to control the information space like Russia,” Limnagl says.