Buzzfeed published a dubious document, which refers to the hacking of Telegram by Russian special services

The popular resource Buzzfeed published a dubious document, according to which the Russian special services, in addition to influencing the results of the elections in the United States, hacked into a protected Telegram messenger. The document to which the resource refers, is a report of a certain "retired British intelligence officer."

Basically, the document is dedicated to the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election and his relationship with the Russian special services. It also mentions the hacking by the FSB of the Telegram messenger.


Screenshot of page number 6, which refers to the "hacking" Telegram
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The report is a supplement to the US intelligence report on the impact of Russia on the results of the recent elections of the 45th President of the country. It indicates that the Telegram messenger has long been of interest to the Russian special services and that it was hacked due to the fact that it was popular with Russian political activists and oppositionists.

In a conversation with Secretmag, Pavel Durov expressed a lack of confidence in the authenticity of the document, noting:

Join Trump and WikiLeaks. If the report took place (which is unlikely - BuzzFeed is not a source of reliable information), the wording "His / her understanding was that FSB ... had a cracked this communication software" most likely implies intercepting authorization SMS of Kozlovsky and Alburov in April 2016

Recall that in April 2016, Durov caught the Russian telecom operators intercepting authorization SMS of the Telegram messenger for the special services. Then the founder of the service recommended users to use two-factor authentication to complicate access to the user's Telegram account:

Apparently, the special services of the Russian Federation decided to begin to put pressure on telecom operators so that they began to intercept the authorization SMS-code. Usually this is found only within the framework of the cannibalistic regimes that do not care about their reputation - Central Asia, and sometimes the Middle East. But suddenly it happened in Russia (unless, of course, cutting off corruption within the MTS).

Previously, the WikiLeaks portal expressed distrust of the document referenced by Buzzfeed. According to the administration of the resource, “the 35-page PDF document that BuzzFeed published regarding Trump is not an intelligence report. Style, facts and dates do not cause any confidence. ”

At the same time, the Buzzfeed resource itself, which carried out the “stuffing” of the document, indicates that there are a number of errors and inaccuracies in it, for example, in writing the names of companies and in the presentation of facts. At the same time, it is not known who such a "retired British intelligence officer", who allegedly provided the document to US intelligence.