Russia’s recent data leaks

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, large amounts of information regarding the Russian state and its operations have become public. Hundreds of gigabytes of files and millions of emails have been made public. In addition to the leaked data published by various hacktivist groups, Ukraine’s intelligence services have been active in publishing data concerning information about Russian military institutions and their servicemen deployed in Ukraine.

The group Distributed Denial of Secrets claims to have published more than 700 gigabytes of data from the Russian government and more than 3 million Russian emails and documents. DDoSecrets also has published more than 360,000 files from Roskomnadzor, the Russian media regulator; 62,000 emails from an investment firm owned by a sanctioned Russian individual; 900,000 emails from VGTRK, a state-owned broadcaster; 230,000 emails from the Russian Ministry of Culture; and 250,000 emails from the Ministry of Education.

A data list published by Ukraine’s intelligence services allegedly contains the personal information of 1,600 Russian troops who served in Ukraine’s city of Bucha. Another list reportedly contains the names and contact details of 620 Russian spies registered to work at the Moscow office of the FSB, the country’s central security agency.

While this data may be a valuable resource for researchers spanning from journalists to those tasked with investigating war crimes, doxing – publishing private or identifying information about a particular individual on the internet – is among the most destructive internet behaviours. Expert explained.