Russian telecom company Rostelecom says vendor data breach compromised subscribers’ personal data

Rostelecom, one of Russia’s largest telecom providers, said it is investigating reports of a data security incident after a hacker group said it breached the telecom’s internal network and stole confidential data.

 

Recently, a hacker group going by the name “Silent Crow” claimed that it infiltrated the internal network of Rostelecom and listed the telecom giant as a victim on its data leak site. 

 

According to screenshots shared on X, the group published a data dump on the dark web that contained sensitive personal information of the telecom company’s customers, including their postal addresses, email addresses and phone numbers.

 

Acknowledging the claims of the threat actor, a Rostelecom spokesperson told local news agencies that one of its third party service providers suffered a significant data security incident that compromised the company’s customer data.

 

“In response to anonymous posts about a data leak attributed to Rostelecom’s Internet resources, the company reports that it had previously recorded information security incidents at one of its contractors servicing these resources. Most likely, the leak occurred from the contractor’s infrastructure,” the company said.

 

Rostelecom added that it has launched an investigation to determine the scope of the incident and has “taken measures to eliminate the identified threats.”

 

“But we recommend that users of the resources reset their passwords and enable two-factor authentication where available,” the telecom provider added.

 

Responding to the data security incident, the Russian Ministry of Digital Development said that it is working with the telecom provider “to strengthen the protection of the operator’s contractor, which likely suffered a data leak.”