U.S. Treasury sanctions on a VPN service knocked out Telegram’s short-link domain worldwide
U.S. Treasury Department sanctions caused a global outage of the t.me domain on July 14, writes the author of the Telegram channel teleLakel, who obtained an official comment from Identity Digital, the company that operates the .me top-level domain.
Identity Digital confirmed that the t.me domain had been blocked at the request of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and said the domain’s registrar, GoDaddy, could provide third parties with additional information.
On July 13, the U.S. Treasury Department posted a notice on its website announcing sanctions against a VPN provider, First VPN Service (1VPNS). T.me/FirstVPNService appeared among several web addresses listed for the service. The Specially Designated Nationals list also named the service’s administrator, Dmytro Rashevsky, a Ukrainian national.
The ministry’s press release specifies that First VPN Service’s principal customers are cybercriminals and organizations distributing ransomware. Rashevsky marketed the service on an alleged assurance that he kept law enforcement at arm’s length. That assurance is what let his customers operate outside the law.
The Treasury Department also says Rashevsky bought infrastructure for the service under false names.
The t.me domain was most likely swept up in the restrictions by mistake, writes the tech outlet CyberSec Guru. The domain itself is not under OFAC sanctions, and blocking the one channel — t.me/FirstVPNService — would have been impossible without Telegram’s cooperation. The registry operator apparently never approached the company and instead complied with a formal request to block the entire domain.
On the afternoon of July 14, multiple outlets reported that the t.me domain was accessible again.
The t.me domain, which Telegram uses for short links, stopped working worldwide on July 14, leaving links in that format unable to load in a browser. Telegram’s other domain, telegram.me, kept working.
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What is this company?
The t.me domain belongs to Montenegro’s national domain zone. The registry operator is doMEn, but several other companies also support the infrastructure, including Identity Digital and GoDaddy.
OFAC
A division of the U.S. Treasury Department responsible for enforcing American sanctions.
SDN
Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List — a registry of individuals and entities that U.S. authorities consider a threat to American national security.