Russian Internet Users Report Growing Access Restrictions as Certificate Revocations Affect 39 Percent of Respondents
A telephone survey carried out by Russian Field between 23 and 30 September 2026 reveals that 39 percent of Russian internet users have already encountered restrictions or complications when attempting to reach websites. The poll, whose results were obtained by Kod.ru from the researchers’ press service, involved 1,600 respondents and is representative by sex, age, federal districts, and types of populated areas, with a margin of error not exceeding 2.44 percent.
While some users are learning to bypass blocks with VPN services, anonymizers, or content-filtering circumvention tools, others simply close the tab. If a familiar resource stops loading because of certificate-related problems, 26 percent of participants said they would abandon the site altogether. When faced with certificate errors, 55 percent would try another browser, 22 percent would install the missing certificates, and 21 percent would switch to a mobile device.
Younger respondents more frequently consider using VPN or proxy solutions, whereas older users are more likely to accept the situation with the phrase “no need then.” Awareness of the issue is relatively high: 57 percent of those surveyed know that Russian sites may fail to open in certain browsers due to the revocation of foreign certificates, and another 7 percent have heard something about it.
For 40 percent of respondents, the inability to open a habitual site in their main browser would constitute a serious problem. Technical changes in the Russian internet segment—speed, accessibility, and stability—were cited by 41 percent as the most noticeable developments so far. Looking ahead, 77 percent expect further alterations to Runet, while only 9 percent believe it will stay the same.
Related articles
Russian Cybersecurity Market Set to Hit 455 Billion Rubles by 2026 as Talent Shortage Persists
MWS Cloud forecasts that the Russian information security market will grow 20.8 percent to reach 455.4 billion rubles in 2026. The largest segment will be software at 216.5 billion rubles, followed by services at 167 billion and hardware at 71.9 billion rubles. Demand is increasingly driven by sophisticated attacks, regulatory requirements and fines rather than import substitution alone. BI.ZONE offers a more conservative estimate of 10-15 percent annual growth. Managed security services such as monitoring, incident response and vulnerability management are leading the services segment because few organizations can maintain 24/7 in-house teams. Director Artem Gribkov of Angara MTDR estimates the personnel deficit at approximately 40 percent, especially at middle and senior levels.
CISA and NSA Urge Shift to Memory-Safe Languages Like Rust to Eliminate Memory Vulnerabilities
Official reports from CISA, NSA, FBI and partners highlight that decades of safe coding practices and code analysis tools have failed to resolve memory safety issues in languages such as C and C++. Government documents cite statistics showing that 70-75% of exploited vulnerabilities and zero-days stem from memory errors, including data from Microsoft, Google Chromium, Mozilla and Project Zero. Google reports that Rust adoption in Android reduced memory-related vulnerabilities below 20% in 2025, with a 1000-fold lower vulnerability density compared to C++. The analysis details Rust's ownership, borrowing and move semantics that provide compile-time guarantees unavailable in C++, enabling stronger compiler optimizations. Reports also acknowledge migration challenges including learning curves, interop issues and ecosystem gaps, while noting ongoing C++ safety improvements targeted for C++26 and C++29. Major organizations including Microsoft, Amazon and Google are already committing to Rust for critical new code.
Russian CA TCI Integrates ACME Protocol to Automate TLS Certificate Issuance
The Technical Center Internet (TCI), part of RTK-COD, has deployed a production ACME server compatible with standard clients such as acme.sh, Certbot and lego. The implementation aligns the ACME state machine with the existing isolated signing infrastructure, Domain Control Validation mechanisms and mandatory Certificate Transparency logging to Yandex and VK CT logs. Certificate lifetimes are shortening industry-wide, with Web PKI limits dropping to 47 days by 2029, making manual issuance unsustainable. The service supports HTTP-01 and DNS-01 challenges, ECDSA P-256 keys and certificate revocation, while preserving the requirement for Subject/CN in CSRs and mandatory revocation reasons. A separate staging environment uses an internal CT log simulator for safe testing. Future plans include full multi-SAN support, ARI (RFC 9773) and removal of the Subject/CN restriction.
Russia Pushes Corporate Multibanking Forward with Updated Open API Standards
The Bank of Russia and AFT have advanced Open Banking standards that enable corporate clients to aggregate account data across multiple banks within a single interface. The new specifications cover consent management, security profiles based on STO BR FAPI and OpenID Connect, and account information retrieval for both individuals and legal entities. While the 2025 pilot results demonstrated practical use cases such as personal financial assistants and corporate multibanking, the updated standards effective from October 2026 still lack a unified initiation-of-transfer component. Developers must therefore combine the new account-data APIs with separate bank-specific payment initiation mechanisms. The article explores how accounting systems or independent fintech services could become the primary workspace for financial directors managing payments, payroll, and liquidity across several banks. It also examines real-world challenges including idempotency handling, status reconciliation after network failures, and the separation of application permissions from signer authority. Examples from the UK Open Banking Limited sweeping VRP statistics illustrate how pre-authorized variable recurring payments can streamline operations while highlighting the additional policy work required for corporate supplier payments in Russia.