Rosstat hack claims 23TB of data stolen including war casualty figures

The Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) has acknowledged that its servers were targeted in coordinated cyberattacks between October 29 and 31. However, the agency strongly denied claims by hacktivist groups that tens of terabytes of sensitive data had been leaked.

• Rosstat servers were hit by cyberattacks from October 29 to 31.
• Hack groups Belarusian CyberPartisans and Silent Crow claimed a 23TB data theft.
• The stolen data allegedly includes classified wartime loss statistics.
• Rosstat admitted the breach but denied any significant data leaks.

Scale of the Cyberattack and IT Infrastructure Damage

According to the hack groups Belarusian CyberPartisans and Silent Crow, the breach resulted in the complete wipeout of Rosstat's IT infrastructure. This reportedly included domain controllers, databases, virtualization servers, and administrative consoles. Critical systems such as STATEK, CSOD, and demographic databases were severely impacted.

At the time of writing, the official Rosstat website remained inaccessible, with reports indicating it was defaced with hacker messages. Although Rosstat functions similarly to national census bureaus in the US or UK rather than a military base, the potential exposure of sensitive state records poses a major security concern.

Controversy Over Wartime Casualty Figures

Rosstat stopped publishing annual cause-of-death statistics back in 2024. However, the hackers claim the massive 23TB haul includes figures marked for official use only regarding Russian military losses. A chart shared by the groups suggests that between 25,000 and 50,000 Russian soldiers have died every month over the past two years.

The Russian government and Rosstat have denied the validity of these casualty leaks. Both hacking groups involved have a history of high-profile attacks in Russia, including the Aeroflot IT systems breach and a state real estate database hack in 2025.

Implications for Cybersecurity and Government Networks

This incident highlights the ongoing vulnerabilities within state digital infrastructure and government data repositories. The ability of hacktivist groups to disrupt and allegedly exfiltrate vast amounts of data from statistical agencies underscores the broader cybersecurity challenges facing critical institutions.

As the Belarusian CyberPartisans promise to release more analyzed documents from the hack, the situation remains a developing story with significant implications for information security in the region.