Russians are advised to stop using the domestic browser Sputnik – its creator went bankrupt, and the domain was bought by an American company whose goals are unclear. With such appeal The National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents (NCCI), created on the initiative of the FSB of Russia, spoke out.
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After the failure of the Sputnik project, which was developed by Rostelecom, the development of the browser of the same name was transferred to the company OOO Sputniklab. It was used in government organizations and government agencies because it was included in the software registry of the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications and supported Russian SSL certificates. But in 2023 OOO Sputniklab was declared bankrupt, and on March 7, 2024, the Sputnik browser was excluded from the software registry of the Ministry of Digital Development.
The developer stopped technical support for the browser in 2022, the domain name browser-sputnik.ru associated with it was not renewed, and it was opened for registration. At the same time, copies of the program continued to contact this address for updates. The domain was bought by the American company Global Internet Telemetry Measurement Collective, and now it is “used by it for unknown purposes.”
“Therefore, there is a threat of introducing malicious modules into the Sputnik software with the aim of compromising the computer equipment,” the NKTsKI concludes, and Russians are advised to refrain from further use, because the consequences could be unpredictable.
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