The cyber-partisan movement Silent Crow has announced a large-scale operation against the internal IT infrastructure of Rosstat. According to the hackers' statement published in their Telegram channel and reported by RBC-Ukraine, the attack compromised the operations of the agency's central office, its regional branches, and the Main Interregional Center for Processing and Disseminating Statistical Information. The total volume of downloaded data, according to the operation's participants, amounted to about 23 terabytes.
Scale of compromise: from domain controllers to virtualization systems
According to details revealed in the Silent Crow statement, the movement's specialists gained access to Rosstat's domain controllers, which generally means obtaining privileged management rights across the entire corporate network. In addition, virtualization and infrastructure management systems were compromised, specifically the ZVIRT, oVirt, and VMware ESXi platforms. This level of access allows malicious actors not only to read but also to modify data, as well as move through the internal network undetected.
Critical departmental information systems affected
The list of compromised critical information systems named by the hackers includes ESSO, AS GS OFSP, "Demography", TSOD, SUR, FPSR, and NSUD. These systems ensure the maintenance of state statistics, processing of census data, generation of reporting and analytical products of Rosstat. According to Silent Crow, the downloaded arrays include databases with statistical, economic, and personal information, census materials, as well as information concerning the military losses of the Russian Federation in the war against Ukraine.
Context: disputed estimates of Russian army losses
The hackers' statement about access to data on Russian losses came amid ongoing discussions surrounding the real scale of the Russian army's casualties. According to calculations by The Economist, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia's total losses in killed and wounded may exceed two million people, of whom 374 to 770 thousand are dead alone. Analysts and intelligence sources note that in October 2026, the Russian army's losses reached a record level for the entire conflict, while the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the same period regained more territory than Russia was able to seize.
Verification and legal consequences
At the time of publication, Rosstat has not published an official comment regarding Silent Crow's statements. Independent verification of the volume and authenticity of the downloaded data has not been carried out at this time. Cybersecurity experts recall that statements by hacker groups often contain elements of information warfare and may exaggerate the actual scale of compromise. Nevertheless, the very fact of a public statement detailing the affected systems and platforms indicates that the operation, at least at the level of statements, was targeted and affected multiple levels of the state agency's infrastructure.
