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Telegram has Experienced a Global Outage

 

On Thursday, March 3, the popular messenger Telegram experienced a failure. Users reported about the problems on the website of the service Downdetector, which tracks problems with access to Internet resources. 

According to Downdetector, the failure occurred at about 14 o'clock Moscow time. The majority of those who left complaints (56 percent) reported problems with the server connection. Users also noted problems with receiving messages (22 percent) and the operation of the application (23 percent). 

The failure affected residents of Russian cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. Users from Ukraine and Belarus also complained about the problems. 

The other day Pavel Durov published the following statement: "We do not want Telegram to be used as a tool to exacerbate conflicts and incite interethnic discord. In the event of an escalation of the situation, we will consider the possibility of partially or completely restricting the operation of Telegram channels in the countries involved during the conflict." 

According to him, recently Telegram has been increasingly used to spread fakes and unverified data related to the war, and the administration does not have the opportunity to check all publications for authenticity. However, soon Durov promised not to limit the work of the messenger in Ukraine. 

According to him, "a lot of users have asked us not to consider disabling Telegram channels for the period of the conflict, since we are the only source of information for them." But he urges users to "double-check and not take for granted the data that is published in Telegram channels during this difficult period." 

It is worth noting that in the week since the beginning of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, news channels in the Telegram messenger have added 19.5 million new subscribers. Another Russian social network, created at the time by Pavel Durov, is experiencing a new surge in popularity due to technical problems of other social networks. In VK, views in the news feed increased by 5% over the week, and the average daily number of video views increased by 15%. People are looking on platforms for up-to-date information from media that are subject to hacker attacks, and from eyewitnesses of events. 

Earlier, CySecurity News reported that three popular foreign social networks - Facebook, Instagram and Twitter began to receive complaints from residents of Russia in large numbers.

VK launched an updated program for protecting user data

VK announced the launch of a new program to protect users and their data VK Protect. It will combine existing protection programs within the company's ecosystem.

According to the press service, the main task of the updated program is to combine all the technical solutions that were previously taken by the company to protect users. Innovations will help to manage privacy more effectively and use tools to protect personal information.

VK has also expanded the use of two-factor authentication, which all community administrators with more than 10,000 subscribers will now be required to pass. At the moment, there are 140,000 such societies on the platform. Two-factor authentication is available in all services of the VK ecosystem, where there is authorization through a single account, as well as when logging into third-party partner sites and applications.

Olga Frolova, Director of Ecosystem Products at VK, stressed that information security will remain a key priority for the company. "We are constantly fighting phishing and promptly notify our users of any suspicious activity. We plan to further develop this area - to invest even more resources in it and actively educate Runet users," Frolova added.

As part of VK Protect, it is also planned to restart the program for payments to security researchers (Bug Bounty) VKontakte and VK ID, and the level of rewards will be increased.

Earlier, CySecurity News reported that the official Yandex Go community in VKontakte sent out an offer to subscribers to take part in a fake raffle with the text “Let's give electronic equipment, accessories and the main prize - money”. Subscribers received messages with phishing links to an external site, where they were asked to enter bank details in order to win $3 thousand.

The European Commission added VKontakte and Telegram to the list of pirate sites

VKontakte is surprised by the decision of the European Commission to include the social network in the list of resources that contribute to online piracy, the company has been interacting with copyright holders for many years and quickly restricts access to controversial content

The European Commission has published a new list of resources that promote piracy and can benefit from it. The list for the first time included the Telegram messenger and the social network VKontakte.

The list is formed on the basis of reports from groups of right holders. According to the European Commission, Telegram users, including using public channels, "exchange illegal content, in particular music, books, news publications, films and TV programs." In addition, subscribers share links to other sites that host pirated content.

The social network "VKontakte" is also included in the list due to many complaints from copyright holders. Users of the social network can have unauthorized access to books, as well as to movies and TV shows, in particular through the built-in video players.

Both Telegram and VKontakte objected to their inclusion in the"piracy watch list". Telegram told the European Commission that it "does not tolerate any malicious content on its platform" and removes it within 24 hours. VKontakte also noted that it is fighting piracy. In particular, the social network indicated that the copyright holder can complain about copyright infringement through an electronic form. According to VKontakte, its employees processed more than 1.36 million such complaints, most of which ended with the removal of content.

"We are surprised by the inclusion of VKontakte in this list, as for many years we have been actively interacting with copyright holders in various areas," said the press service of the social network.

According to them, the company signed agreements with the world's largest copyright holders of music products, including Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music, The Orchard, Merlin Network, Believe Digital.