Last year, Russia infamously moved to block secure messaging app Telegram after the company refused to hand over its decryption keys to the FSB – an order which Telegram founder Pavel Durov deemed technically unfeasible due to the nature of end-to-end encryption. ProtonMail said it could not estimate how many users in Russia were affected, as the company does not collect that information. “We also recommend for Russian users impacted by this block to encourage their contacts to get a free ProtonMail account to secure their communications.” “We have implemented some measures to minimize the impact of the block, and services are currently running normally again in Russia,” Yen said. A person using a Russian email service would therefore not be able to send emails to a ProtonMail inbox, and vice versa. In other words, all email systems in Russia have stopped communicating with ProtonMail.

ProtonMail users in Russia are still able to access their inboxes, Yen said, meaning that Moscow was attempting to block traffic to its servers through a technique called BGP blackholing.

“While ProtonMail has remained accessible in Russia, we became aware that Russian mail services (like ) could not properly communicate with ProtonMail.” “We can confirm that the Russian government has been attempting to block ProtonMail,” Dr Andy Yen, the company’s CEO, told The Daily Swig.

ProtonMail said it became aware of an issue affecting its service at the beginning of March. Russia continues its internet crackdown, with secure email service ProtonMail becoming the latest to face possible censorship across the country.Īccording to local Russian media, a block of the Swiss email provider was ordered by the Federal Security Service (FSB) over claims that its encryption was aiding terrorism, specifically a series of anonymous bomb threats sent to various organizations in regional areas this past January.Ī copy of the order made to communications regulator Roskomnadzor appears to have been filed in late February, where a total of 26 internet addresses were blocked, Tech Crunch reported. The news comes as thousands protest against more internet restrictions

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