iscover
Share this article on:
Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
The cyber frontlines in Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine are bolstered by a range of hacktivist groups, some with strong ties to Russian authorities, and others more loosely aligned to state interests, yet independent.
Many of the latter are seen as cyber criminals by the West, and even by Russian law, but that may be about to change.
Russian media reported over the weekend that the Duma committee on information policy is considering the question of “liability” for such pro-Russian actors.
“We are talking about, in general, working out the exemption from liability of those persons who act in the interests of the Russian Federation in the field of computer information both on the territory of our country and abroad,” committee head Alexander Khinshtein told Russia’s state-owned news agency, TASS, according to Russian radio station Govorit Moskva.
At the moment the idea is still being fleshed out, Govorit Moskva reports.
Currently, Russian cyber criminals face up to seven years in prison.
The move, if true, would mark an interesting evolution of Russia’s stance on hacking groups.
In a statement reported by TASS on Friday, 10 February, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov decried recent sanctions applied against the Trickbot hacking group.
"The US Treasury seems to have nothing else to do than to impose sanctions on Russian citizens. And all this is done in a very clumsy way — no arguments and no evidence,” Ambassador Antonov said.
Antonov went on to decry Washington’s ‘freezing’ of recent dialogue and co-operation regarding cybercrime and went on to comment on Russia’s reputation as a criminal haven.
"As for the US Treasury’s allegations that Russia is a ‘haven’ for cyber criminals, they are false and irresponsible. All that is an integral element of the hybrid war waged against us," Antonov said.
"In 2022, our country was a target of an unprecedentedly high number of external cyber attacks. About 50,000 hacker attacks were repelled. The majority of them originated from the territory of the United States. A fair question is: maybe the 'haven' for cybercrime is the United States then?"
If Russia does indeed approve exemptions for hacking groups working in Russia’s national interest, that reputation will be much harder to refute.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
Be the first to hear the latest developments in the cyber industry.
