- Confidential and Proprietary - Luminar Annual Threat Landscape Report Page 8 3 Telegram 3.1 History and Rise in Popularity Telegram Messenger is a globally accessible instant messaging service. It was co-founded and launched in 2013 by the Russia-born brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. In 2006, the two also founded the social networking site VKontakte (also known as VK). However, in 2014, Pavel Durov, the current CEO of Telegram, has resigned from VK and left Russia after he refused to cooperate with the Russian secret service to provide encrypted data of VK’s users. In 2014, Telegram was headquartered in Berlin until its operational center was moved to Dubai in 2017. According to the company, although it has five data centers around the world, none are based in Russia, which protects the data from the Russian authorities’ oversight. 11 Telegram was banned in Russia in 2018 after Pavel Durov refused to give the authorities access to its user data. However, the ban was easily bypassed, and the service continued to grow. Eventually, Russia lifted the ban in mid-2020. 12 Telegram has proven to be less vulnerable to the kind of pressure that other foreign-based social media platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, faced in Russia. While in 2021 it removed contents related to a campaign by Alexey Navalny, a jailed opposition activist, Russia is yet to limit most of Telegram’s flow of information. As a result, according to a 2021 study, 6 out of 10 Russians use Telegram because the Russian authorities cannot comprehensively scrutinize the platform. 13 Over the years, Telegram has constantly increased its user base. Several events have contributed to the app’s growth in popularity: + In October 2014, governmental surveillance plans drove many South Koreans to switch to Telegram. Telegram reported that roughly 1.5 million new South Korean users have signed up in just a week, raising the app’s user base to more than 50 million worldwide. 14 + In March 2019, Pavel Durov claimed that 3 million new users had signed up for Telegram within 24 hours. Although Durov did not specify what prompted this wave of sign-ups, the period matched a prolonged technical outage experienced by Facebook and its affiliated 11 https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/?sh=520cd6a114c5 12 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/05/telegram-app-ukraine-rides-high-thirst-trustworthy- news 13 https://flashpoint.io/blog/telegram-intelligence-ukraine-russian-war/ 14 https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/6/6926205/surveillance-drives-south-koreans-to-encrypted- messaging-apps