FSB and Mintsifra verify data on leaked biometric data of Russians

Information about the alleged leak of biometric data of Russians from the Voskhod Research Institute of the Federal State Autonomous Institution (FGAU) is being verified by the Ministry of Digital Development and the FSB, informed RIA Novosti in reference to the press service of the ministry. In Roskomnadzor declared RBC that they have no information about what happened.

The fact that the leak occurred first informed telegram channel “Before everyone else. Almost”. The Voskhod Research Institute falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, which has already confirmed that it detected “abnormal activity” in the company’s internal network, but has not yet acknowledged the fact of a data leak, since the information processed by Voskhod is allegedly “not published on the network”.

“The data is stored in encrypted form, the decryption key is stored in Goznak. Under no circumstances will this allow illegal access to biometric data,” the ministry assured.

Forbes in reference to the specialists of the IB group writingthat information about the data leak from Voskhod has not been confirmed, and the very fact of such a “leak” was not recorded by telegram channels, which usually reflect such events.

Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well, almost” reported that he had received information about the leak from his own source. The report said that the PVDP database developed by Voskhod – the electronic passport issuance system and processing subsystem personal and biometric data – was available on the Internet throughout its existence, i.e. since 2006.

“According to the preliminary version, the leak occurred internally, the attacker, after being fired, took advantage of the vulnerabilities embedded in the system, broke into the system and downloaded a productive database”, reported the Telegram channel.

According to him, the leak could cover biometric data not only of Russians, but also of citizens of Kazakhstan and Belarus. The RBC source expressed the opinion that the “dump” of the data could be organized by a Voskhod employee with access to “tens of percent of the passport database”.

FGAU Research Institute “Voskhod”, as declared on the website of the Department of Digital Development, is the main departmental institute engaged in the development and implementation of federal information systems, including special purpose databases.

On the Voskhod site saidthat the mission of the institute is to help the state to form the information society by creating effective means of information exchange between the authorities and the population. This research institute, in particular, was responsible for creating the GAS “Vybory” system.