Sberbank to Terminate Currency and Multicurrency Visa Cards from September 2026 Despite Prior Extensions to 2030
Sberbank will stop servicing currency and multicurrency Visa cards from 1 September 2026, according to an SMS notification sent to clients. The measure affects even those cards whose expiration dates had previously been extended until 2030.
The bank recommended that customers close the affected cards in advance and transfer any remaining funds to other accounts. Cardholders can complete the closure process through the Sberbank Online mobile application by navigating to the card management section, selecting the relevant card, and initiating the closure procedure. Clients who do not use the app must visit a bank branch in person.
Early closure is intended to help customers retain access to their funds and prevent potential delays after the September 2026 deadline. The move also allows Sberbank to avoid long queues of customers holding suddenly obsolete plastic cards.
The decision forms part of the broader withdrawal of Visa and Mastercard from Russian circulation amid sanctions and import-substitution efforts. In early July, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina stated that the process is continuing, although the regulator has not yet set a final deadline for abandoning international cards.
In May, Alla Bakina, Director of the National Payment System Department at the Central Bank, indicated that Visa and Mastercard must leave the Russian market. Since the payment systems departed, their cards have lost previous functionality, while the National System of Payment Cards continues to spend resources on their maintenance.
Over the past four to five years, the combined share of Visa and Mastercard in Russia has fallen below 17 percent. Banks are replacing them primarily with Mir cards, and the National System of Payment Cards is using economic incentives to phase out legacy plastic.
Related articles
Protecting Data Centers from Kinetic and Cyber Attacks: What Regulators Worldwide Are Proposing
InfoWatch experts have updated their April report on data center resilience, highlighting how physical and cyber threats now directly threaten business continuity and national security. Regulators in the United States, European Union, and Russia are treating data centers as strategic infrastructure requiring layered defenses that combine physical hardening, geographic distribution, and strict cybersecurity controls. The United States has launched the Cyberstrategy for America 2026 emphasizing offensive operations, Zero Trust modernization, and supply-chain restrictions. The European Union is implementing ProtectEU and the Cyber Solidarity Act with real-time threat sharing and mandatory resilience standards under DORA. Russia is advancing technological sovereignty targets, new siting rules for data centers, and Presidential Decree No. 604 that enables temporary state management of inadequately protected critical facilities. The report also notes growing recognition that attacks on data centers can constitute acts of aggression under the Tallinn Manual.
US Department of Homeland Security Orders Federal Agencies to Remove DeepSeek Products
The US Department of Homeland Security issued an order on October 19 requiring federal civilian agencies to cease purchasing products from DeepSeek and to remove related technology from government systems. The directive, published the following day, targets Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, its affiliates, and any third-party products or services built on DeepSeek implementations. The measure stems from the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 and follows a recommendation by the Federal Acquisition Security Council, though no specific incidents or evidence were detailed in the notice. The restriction applies only to federal environments and does not prohibit private sector or individual use outside government systems. No removal deadline was set, and the document does not name the signing authority. The order is filed under docket DHS-2026-0628 with the CISA implementation team listed as the contact point.
AKIT Requests Temporary Permission for Russian Companies to Transfer Personal Data Abroad After Data Center Incidents
The Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) has sent a formal letter to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin proposing a temporary exemption from strict data localization rules. The measure would allow affected companies to move critical systems and Russian citizens' personal data to data centers in friendly countries when domestic infrastructure is unavailable due to accidents or damage. Members including Ozon, Wildberries, Cooper, and Yandex Market argue that services must continue operating even if Russian facilities are compromised. The proposed special regime would apply only after an officially confirmed incident, require compliance with information security standards, and end no later than March 1, 2028. After recovery, companies would be required to return to normal data processing within Russia. Expert Alexey Muntyan noted that the mechanism activates only after incidents occur and questioned whether countries should be selected based on data protection levels rather than political alignment.
Anthropic Model Reconstructs NSA Seeds for NIST Elliptic Curves in Under 30 Minutes
An internal Anthropic research model traced the origins of the five seeds used by the NSA to generate the NIST elliptic curves P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, and P-521. The discovery resolves a 25-year-old question that arose when the curves were standardized in FIPS 186-2 for ECDSA in 2000. Researchers combined analysis of 1990s random number generators, 34 generator-output combinations, and lattice reduction techniques to identify lrand48 initialized with Unix timestamps from May 1997 to April 1998. The P-256 seed corresponds to the 1842nd candidate from a run started on 16 August 1997, and example seeds from ANSI X9.62 follow the same pattern. The work does not demonstrate any cryptographic break or backdoor in the curves and does not recommend changes to production systems. Several questions remain open, including the seed for curve B-163 and the reason certain candidate values were discarded.