In Russia, the owners of websites advertising VPN services were fined 19 million rubles

Owners of websites with information about VPN services were fined almost 19 million rubles in 2024 for ignoring the removal of such illegal content, Roskomnadzor told Izvestia on February 7.

Since March 1, 2024, Russia has banned the distribution of information on the Web that advertises or popularizes means of circumventing blocking for access to illegal content. The law provides for a fine of 800,000 to 4 million rubles for non-compliance. If violations occur repeatedly, the amount of penalties may range from 1/20 to 1/10 of the company's total annual revenue.

Roskomnadzor has sent demands to remove banned materials from more than 7,300 websites or Internet pages. To date, banned materials have been removed from 6.3 thousand web pages, and access is restricted to another 1 thousand sites or web pages.

"Russians fall into the "risk zone" when using such services, because VPN-applications have not once been caught for negligent attitude to personal data of users. In addition, it is not uncommon and cases of leaking databases of such services in the darknet or selling them to third parties", - said the deputy of the State Duma Anton Nemkin.

According to him, VPNs have become a powerful tool for attackers, with the help of which they can cause a lot of problems for users. Starting from spam mailings and ending with serious extortion fraud.

In addition, by the end of October 2024, 197 malicious VPN services had been blocked - 18% more than a year earlier. However, downloads peaked in August and December 2024 due to a drop in YouTube's speed in the Russian Federation.

"In general, there is no ban on the use of VPN services in our country today, no liability is also provided. Nevertheless, users should make a balanced decision themselves - whether a few minutes on banned platforms are worth a whole stream of personal data, which will steal VPN," - summarized the deputy.

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Last year, the head of the analytical center Zecurion Vladimir Ulyanov admitted that in Russia may appear a new type of fraud aimed at VPN users, amid discussions about possible fines for its use. According to him, as soon as there is a need, demand or interest in something in society, fraudsters immediately become active and use the information occasion to deceive people.