{"id":145318,"date":"2019-07-23T21:27:51","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T21:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=145318"},"modified":"2025-07-01T21:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:39:08","slug":"russians-target-tor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/russians-target-tor\/","title":{"rendered":"Tor anonymous browser targeted by Russian intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tor\"<\/p>\n

Hackers have discovered that a Russian Intelligence contractor was trying to breach Tor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is Tor?<\/h2>\n

In case you’ve never heard of it, Tor is a web browser that allows you to surf the web privately<\/strong> without fear of government surveillance or being tracked.\u00a0It is very popular in Russia although it is available in other countries.<\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n \"Tor\"\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n Tor<\/span>\r\n Download now \u25ba<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n <\/path><\/path>8<\/text><\/svg>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n <\/span>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n

Is Tor a good browser?<\/h2>\n

Aside from this recent news, it’s okay, but there are better options that we will get into later.<\/p>\n

How were they trying to do this?<\/h2>\n

When someone uses Tor, their internet service provider gets a ping that lets them know that it is being used. However, the ISP doesn’t get notified about what websites they were surfing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hackers stole more than seven terabytes of data from SyTech, the Russian Intelligence contractor.<\/p>\n

In that data, they discovered that SyTech planned to use a program called Nautilus-S to discover what website a Tor user was on before closing the window.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did it work?<\/h2>\n

Oddly enough, this breaching plan seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Even if you were a Tor user in Russia, there was a slim chance that you were susceptible to the breach, and an even slimmer chance that the info would be sent back to SyTech.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a statement from a Tor spokesperson, even if a Tor user was affected by the breach, they were still kept anonymous.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

What should I do?<\/h2>\n

Unless you live in Russia and worry about government surveillance, you probably aren’t a Tor user. If you are, you might want to switch your browser of choice.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you haven’t been convinced by all the wonderful security features we’ve already written about<\/a>, then hopefully this news has convinced you to finally switch to Firefox<\/a> or Brave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

Mozilla Firefox<\/p>\r\n Download free \u25ba<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n

\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n \"Brave\"\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n Brave<\/span>\r\n DOWNLOAD free \u25ba<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n <\/path><\/path>10<\/text><\/svg>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n <\/span>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tor users beware: your web-browsing might have been compromised. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9180,"featured_media":145324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[2216,1624,2215],"usertag":[839],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-145318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-hackers","tag-privacy","tag-russian-intelligence","usertag-vpn"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t