August’s VPN crackdown in Russia ran on data the country’s own apps had already collected on their users

In early August, Russia experienced a major VPN blocking campaign that unleashed unprecedented scale on the country's internet landscape. Leonid Volkov, from the Anti-Corruption Foundation, called it “the biggest in history.” This attack raised questions about how Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal censorship agency, made its decisions and the logic behind it.

Liberty VPN reported that while the attack didn't have a significant impact on their services, they believed it was merely a pattern being tested by Roskomnadzor. They had anticipated this attack and prepared an automated system to fend off such attacks, which proved effective. However, they noted that the attack's uniqueness lay in its use of data collected from Russian apps and services like Yandex, VK, Max, and HeadHunter.

This data was fed into Russia's internet traffic filtering system, TSPU, allowing Roskomnadzor to block large numbers of IP addresses simultaneously.

Other VPN services, such as Amnezia VPN, Paper VPN, and BlancVPN, also reported varying degrees of impact. While BlancVPN acknowledged that the attack was larger due to the extensive data Roskomnadzor had amassed, they emphasized that it affected services with a range of hosting providers and users. Amnezia VPN denied being affected by the attack, despite some media outlets reporting otherwise.