In Russia, there has been a sharp increase in the number of reports of account hacks

Over the past six months, Russians have been twice as likely to inform friends and family about losing control of their accounts and warn them not to take the actions that the attackers called for. Analysts at Pressindex, using the media and social media monitoring system of the same name, studied user requests in which they reported hacking or asked not to respond to requests for money transfers or voting. The results were reviewed by Izvestia on March 31.

Telegram users, according to reports, were hacked about 1.7 times more often than users of all other social platforms combined, experts noted.

Instagram Facebook and Instagram Over the period from March 2024 to March 2025, Telegram messenger, YouTube video hosting, Vkontakte and VK Video social networks, Odnoklassniki, Zen, Rutube, Pikabu, X TikTok, as well as Facebook and Instagram (these two social networks belong to Meta, whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) recorded more than 165 thousands of messages from Russian users about account hacks. The monitoring took into account publications, comments, chats and discussions. Telegram users accounted for more than half of the hacks.

From a black approach: hackers have quadrupled their attacks on Russia

The public sector, postal services and cargo and passenger transportation were among the most affected industries.

"In total, the number of account hacking reports across all platforms increased by 124.09%, from 51,129 in the first half of the year to 114,576 in the second. The dynamics continues to increase," the analysts said.

Earlier, on March 5, it was reported that hackers in 2024 were four times more likely than in 2023 to attack the web resources of Russian companies. This was told to Izvestia by cybersecurity companies. The average number of web attacks increased from 15 million to 65 million per month.