Telegram founder says Trump leaks look fake, but FSB could have illegally intercepted messages

The latest unverified dossier on President-elect Donald Trump that makes sensational claims could be totally fake, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has claimed. The encrypted messaging app – Telegram – has also been mentioned in the dossier, which claims Russian intelligence agency (FSB) successfully cracked the application.

"I personally think the report is fake," Durov told Motherboard in a Telegram message. "But if it is not, it probably refers to the story on SMS interception by FSB in April 2016."

Durov noted an incident where two Russian activists had accused MTS – a telecom provider in the country – of helping FSB agents intercept login requests sent over SMS and using those requests to hijack individual accounts. A similar attack was also reportedly discovered in Iran.

Further, Telegram had notified that the successful interception was not a result of any security flaw or bug, but may affect those who do not use two-factor authentication. If users did not opt for this authentication, their accounts could be disabled by service providers, their number taken over and someone else can log in to their account and pretend to be the user – which is what happened in the earlier case.

Following the exposure in April, Durov had said that Russia's security apparatus had started pressuring local operators – without court orders. He added that since the April case, there might have been another interception, but with most users are on the app using the two-step verification, there are less chances of anyone other than the user having access to Telegram messages.