Is Yandex Access safe?

Question

Accepted Answer

Yandex Access is low risk. Every 20 minutes, the Yandex Access extension downloads a configuration file from a Yandex-controlled CDN server. When the configuration includes a 'direct_check_urls' list, the extension sends HTTP GET requests to each listed URL from your browser, measuring whether each host is reachable and how quickly it responds. The probe results—the tested URL, outcome state (success, timeout, or error), response time, and HTTP status code—are then forwarded to a Yandex telemetry endpoint. During dynamic analysis, we observed the extension probing cellar.z5h64q92x9.net/nearest and loft.z5h64q92x9.net/nearest and reporting results to yandex.ru. The URLs probed are determined entirely by the remote configuration and can change at any time without an extension update.

Is Yandex Access safe?

Findings