Multiscanner

2025: Closure due to lack of funding

The state public antivirus service Multiskaner, created by the ANO National Technological Center for Digital Cryptography, ceased to operate due to lack of funding. This became known on July 3, 2025.

According to CNews, the federal budget was supposed to allocate ₽90 million until 2024 for these purposes, according to the revision of the federal project "Information Security" of the national program "Digital Economy" from 2019. The creation of a public antivirus scanner was provided for by the Digital Economy national program in 2017.

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Фото: Freepik

The first to notice the termination of the service was the Telegram channel "Cyber ​ ​ War" and information security analyst Alexei Lukatsky. The service website states that the closure is due to the lack of financing for the project.

The project had a complex history of implementation with the repeated change of responsible organizations. The first version of Multiskaner was tried by Finzert, an organization created by the Central Bank for cybersecurity in the financial sector. In 2021, Multiskaner was launched by the Federal Security Service.

In 2024, Multiskaner was restarted by the National Technological Center for Digital Cryptography, created by the Ministry of Digital Development of Digital Science. It was supposed to create a Russian analogue of VirusTotal, a free service that analyzes suspicious files and links for detecting malware.

According to the Ministry of Digital Development report on the results of the work of the ANO NTCC for 2024, the second stage of the Multiscaner system was deployed to identify malicious software in the files. The system was intended to check files downloaded to government information systems, including ransomware viruses.^[1]

2023

Plan to allocate about 7.1 billion rubles for the implementation of the Multiskaner system

The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation is going to invest about 25.2 billion rubles in the development of cybersecurity until 2030. Such data are given in the materials of the national project "Data Economics."

Of this amount, about 7.1 billion rubles are planned to be spent on the introduction of the Multiskaner cyber incident counteraction system based on State system of detection, prevention and elimination of consequences of computer attacks. Read more here.

Creating a System

The National Technological Center for Digital Cryptography, subordinate to the Ministry of Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation, creates a "superantivirus" by analogy with the American VirusTotal system. This was announced at the end of October 2023 by the Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Alexander Shoitov.

According to him, an appropriate infrastructure is being created for the new technology in Russia, "a large amount of traffic is disassembled on the fly, some suspicious malicious elements are found in it." Shoitov added that it will be a "very powerful system" not only in terms of the technology itself.

Russia is creating its own analogue of VirusTotal

VirusTotal is an online service that is used to scan files and processes for viruses and other malware. The platform works using many antivirus engines, including such well-known ones as Avast, Kaspersky and McAfee. When a user downloads a file to scan in VirusTotal, the service scans the file for all antiviruses and generates a results report. This report allows the user to quickly determine whether the file is secure or not.

Earlier, the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov announced that the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, the Central Bank and Roskomnadzor jointly created an "antivirus" for the entire Internet. By October 2023, this program has no name, but it is known what it will do:

• track malicious sites;
• Block phishing portals
• block sites with scammers;
• monitor suspicious bank transactions and transfers;
• monitor criminal activity on the network.

It is assumed that it will take from 3 to 24 hours to analyze and block one site. According to the developers, the program will protect Internet surfing of users and help government agencies fight crime.^[2]

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