Russia's 2026 Leaks: Delivery and Travel Make Up 80%
In short: According to Solar AURA, part of Russian cybersecurity group Solar, Russia saw 333 data leaks in January–September 2026 — 42% fewer than a year earlier. But nearly 80% of the 2.11 billion leaked records came from transport, delivery and travel companies: names, phone numbers, addresses and orders that scammers use to make convincing "delivery service" calls.
What the Solar report found
On 26 October 2026, analysts at Solar AURA published nine months of leak-monitoring results for Russia. At first glance the picture looks better: 333 incidents versus 573 a year earlier, and the volume of published data fell 19%, from 2.61 to 2.11 billion records. Yet the five largest leaks made up 83% of the total, and the single biggest accounted for half.
The real shift is whose data is leaking. The bulk used to come from the public sector; now the leaders are companies that know the most everyday things about us — what we order, where it goes and where we travel. You can check whether your details appear in known breaches using our guide on how to check if your data was leaked.
Which sectors were hit hardest?
| Sector | Share of leaked volume | Records | A year earlier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transport and delivery | 53% | 1.12 bn | 5.7% |
| Tourism | 25% | 523.6 m | 0% |
| Finance | 8% | 170.2 m | 0.2% |
| Public sector | under 1% | 14.7 m | 84% |
Alexander Vurasko, development director at Solar AURA, attributes the reshuffle to a handful of large incidents that skewed the statistics, rather than attackers moving en masse to one industry. That is little comfort to the people affected: their phone numbers and addresses are already circulating.
More phishing, now written by AI
The report also covers phishing. The number of unique phishing sites rose 25% in a year. They are being taken down faster — in 3.5 hours on average instead of 11.5 — but scammers respond with volume: domains with random prefixes grew from 25% to 45%, and the share of .com addresses jumped from 7% to 51.5%. According to Vurasko, fraud runs like an industry cutting costs, and almost all phishing sites are now filled with AI-generated text.
How leaks turn into "delivery" scam calls
The same week, Russia's Interior Ministry, as reported by TASS, warned about a "payment error" scheme. A caller poses as a delivery service employee, says something went wrong with the payment for an order and offers a refund — asking for the card details and the SMS code to process it. Anyone who shares them loses money. The ministry also noted that scammers increasingly use Telegram bots, which are easy to create and handy for collecting messages, payments and form data.
The link to the report is direct. With your name, number and order history from a leaked database, a scam call sounds credible: it names a real shop and a real parcel. We cover these scenarios in our guides to SMS phishing and protecting elderly parents from scams.
How to protect yourself
- Never share SMS codes or your card's CVV. A refund never needs a confirmation code — codes are used to take money, not to return it.
- Hang up and call back yourself. Get the support number from the shop's app or official website, not from the call or a message.
- Give services as little data as possible. Where you can, use a separate email for orders and pickup points instead of your home address.
- Turn on two-factor authentication for email, banking and marketplaces, and use unique passwords — a password manager helps.
- Warn your family. Older relatives are the most likely to trust a "delivery" call.
Where does a VPN fit in? Honestly, it will not recover data leaked from a company's database, and it will not stop a scam phone call. Its job is network privacy: LiMP VPN encrypts your traffic on public networks and hides your IP address from websites and trackers, so less information about you is collected in the first place.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
Why are there fewer leaks but still so much data?
A few large incidents drive the volume: according to Solar, the five biggest leaks made up 83% of all records, and one alone accounted for half.
A delivery service calls asking for a code to process a refund. What should I do?
Hang up. A refund never requires an SMS code. Call the shop's support using the number in its app or on its official website.
Will a VPN help if my data has already leaked?
No, a VPN cannot undo a leak. It protects your traffic on public networks and hides your IP from trackers, reducing how much new data is collected about you.