Russia Gets a Taste of Its Own Medicine as Hackers Target the Country

The world is used to Russian hackers being a serious threat to businesses and infrastructure, but the tables have turned, and now Russia is increasingly the focus of attacks.

As Reuters reports, Vladimir Putin held a meeting with the Russian government's Security Council today during which cyber attacks were a focus. Apparently the number of attacks targeting state-owned companies, financial institutions, medical providers, and news websites in the country have increased several-fold.

Putin said, "Targeted attempts are being made to disable the internet resources of Russia's critical information infrastructure," and that "Serious attacks have been launched against the official sites of government agencies. Attempts to illegally penetrate the corporate networks of leading Russian companies are much more frequent as well."

Notable targets for these attacks include Russia's second largest bank VTB, online marketplace Avito, e-commerce company Wildberries, tech company Yandex, food delivery company Delivery Club, and video hosting website RuTube. Putin believes the best countermeasure is a focus on domestic technology and equipment, while also acknowledging sanctions have meant technical support for foreign software and products has stopped.

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Focusing on domestic technology to make IT systems more resilient may prove much more difficult than Putin realizes. With access to the latest PC hardware disappearing, it seems Russia's IT future relies on a slow Chinese x86 CPU and legalizing software piracy. And who is going to carry out the work required to improve the protection of state-owned systems, prisoners with IT skills?

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