Russian minister: Internet security requires investments

The more popular the Internet becomes, the more attractive it is for criminals, Russia’s Minister of Communication and Media Nikolai Nikiforov said in an interview with the Segodnya (Today) weekly programme at the NTV television channel on Sunday.
“There are still many places on the Internet to see information on drug substances. This is a process. The more popular the Internet becomes, the more criminals want to use it. Clearly, the Internet is a trans-border space. It is a global information system, and very often we see major breaches made by our foreign counterparts,” the minister said.
An information resource may be located wherever, he said, in any jurisdiction. Thus, here a key responsibility is with the government. Governments should block access.
Russia has cyber divisions at all security authorities. They divisions feature professionals, who are fighting the attacks on this country, on the mass media, and even on Russia’s commercial sector.
“This sphere requires close attention from the government, from corporations, from the specialists. This is an issue requiring investments,” the minister said.
In the issues of information security, Russia relies on joint efforts with BRICS and SCO countries
In the issues of information security, Russia relies on joint efforts with BRICS and SCO countries, Minister of Communication and Media Nikolai Nikiforov said.
“Russia has a very good school of specialists in technical protection of information, and, in my opinion, the country has been undertaking sufficient measures. But the outstanding problems with software, information technologies are much wider. What information systems are on our mobile devices? From what countries? All the systems are not from two or three, they all are from one country. Nowadays in the world there are more producers of airplanes than of operation systems. No wonder. This product from the technology point of view is more complex than products of modern aviation or space. In order to gain a major part of the modern market, producers have to attract thousands of engineers,” the minister said.
Russia has a potential in the sphere, but it is already an issue of competing for occupied markets, he said.
“Thus, here we are relying on uniting our efforts with colleagues from BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and with others. We are contacting them permanently and we are working on independence of our enterprises.”
Problems emerge where monopolies are, he continued.
“Without a monopoly, intelligence services of one country could not get access to hundreds of millions users. It would have been impossible. It would not have been possible to agree with dozens companies worldwide. And they managed to push for the decision regarding five companies in their country, and we have what we have.”
However, he said, the threat is not coming from telephones, smartphones, pads or any other mobile devices.
“Threats may come from the non-declared devices inside of them. This is not responsibility of producers - this is a problem of producers. Since they all are watched very closely by certain intelligence services. Thus, every user should be personally responsible for the data put on the net, for the pictures made by the phone, for any information processed by a device,” the minister said.