Russia is perceived as a threat to global cyber-security, says a report on worldwide technology safety released earlier this week by the Brussels-based Security & Defence Agenda (SDA). According to experts surveyed for “Cyber-security: The vexed question of global rules,” Russia remains “a thug state with great hackers.”
The report cites Vitaly Kamluk of the Internet security company Kaspersky Lab on past and present Russian trends: “Russia is known around the world for certain types of attacks, [among them] banking Trojans and spam-sending botnets. But we’re growing more and more like the rest of the world now.” Today, Kamluk adds, Russian citizens and organizations themselves come under attack by Russian hackers more and more often.
The report also notes that Russia is tightening up its cyber-defenses with new regulations on domain names, digital signatures and personal data protection. At the same time, however, Russian officials oppose the idea of “trans-border access” that allows authorities in one country to pursue criminals in another.
Yet Russia remains less dependent on the Internet than other developed countries for its critical infrastructure, the report adds, reducing the risk of attacks like those against supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems in the United States. According to Alexey Salnikov, Vice Director of Information Security at Moscow State University, “Large swaths of this huge territory are not yet [online]…and the Internet is not involved in all the structures of government.”
The SDA analysts further point to the growing popularity and influence of social networks in Russia, which threatens regime stability and creates the possibility of a “Russian Spring.”
Supported by the U.S. computer security firm McAfee, Inc., the SDA report is based on interviews with 80 cyber-security experts from government agencies, private companies, international organizations and academia in some 35 countries. The aim of the report was to offer a global snapshot of current thinking about cyber-threats, the measures that should be taken against them, and the obstacles – called “global walls” – to building these defenses. To achieve workable international rules governing cyber-space, these walls must be razed, the report maintains, with national and international organizations increasing their cooperation to protect the citizens of all countries.
Some 250 respondents were asked by SDA analysts to rank countries other than their own on the state of “cyber-preparedness.” On the final list of 21 countries, Russia – along with China, Italy and Poland – received a rating of three stars (out of five). The highest rating was awarded to Israel, Sweden and Finland, with Mexico receiving the lowest.
