Russian intelligence agency SVR sets up dark web reporting platform with V3 domain

Russia's main intelligence service, the SVR, has deployed a system similar to the SecureDrop reporting platform that allows Russians living abroad to send anonymous tips about national security threats securely via the Tor network.

Russian news site CurrentTime found that Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) says on a page of its official website, "If you are outside of Russia and have important information about an urgent threat to the security of the Russian Federation, you can securely and anonymously share it via the TOR network via the SVR's Virtual Reception System (VRS) with share it with us."

SVR's new Tor site is located at

http://svrgovru24yd42e6mmrnohzs37hb35yqeulvmvkc76e3drb75gs4qrid.onion

The Tor site works similarly to SecureDrop, an open source project that allows government organizations, NGOs and news outlets to receive anonymous messages.

Users who want to send tips to SVR can register on the site and will receive a five-word keyword that they can later use to access their tips and see responses from SVR agents.

The tip submission process works the same way as the SecureDrop software - the other difference is that SecureDrop generates seven-word keywords instead of five. The instructions on how to use the platform are also strikingly similar to those provided by the SecureDrop platform.

It's unclear whether SVR developed its own SecureDrop clone for its reporting platform, or whether it used a little-known open source project.

Recorded Future's Insikt Group told The Record today that the agency has yet to make any official statement about its new Tor portal, which appears to have been quietly added to its official website on Dec. 30, 2020.

The CIA also has a Tor site

However, the SVR is not the first intelligence agency to operate a Tor site. As we previously covered, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched a Tor-hosted version of its official website in May 2019.

The difference is that the CIA's Tor site - located at ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion- -is simply a version of the same from its official website and does not allow ordinary Americans living in the United States or abroad to notify the agency in a similarly secure way that Russians can do on the SVR.

Earlier in the year, the Biden administration officially accused SVR of planning the 2020 SolarWinds supply chain attack through its cyber espionage unit called APT29 (Cozy Bear), but SVR posted a cryptic and somewhat hilarious response on its official website denying the allegations.