Telecommunications Breakdown: How Russian Telco Infrastructure was Exposed

Security firm UpGuard prevented potentially malicious use of a storage device holding 1.7 terabytes of data revealing details of telecom installations throughout Russia. The information, which included email archives and administrative credentials, mostly related to telecom firms Nokia and Mobile TeleSystems (MTS). It contained pictures and instructions about the System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM), hardware enabling communication interception and review by Russian authorities including the Federal Security Bureau. Russia’s biggest telecom firm MTS, with over 100 million subscribers to its mobile network, was the prime entity affected.