Russia will cut off some Internet access to respond to external threats

Recently, the Russian Ministry of Communications stated that Russia will disconnect from the global Internet on December 23 and test the reliability of its domestic Internet infrastructure to verify its ability to respond to external Internet threats. The Ministry of Communications guarantees that the threat test will be conducted in stages without affecting ordinary Internet users.

Earlier, Russia enacted a bill called the “sovereign internet”, which aims to strengthen state control over Russian networks. It is understood that the formulation of the law is mainly because Russia believes that the national cybersecurity strategy previously issued by the United States is “aggressive.”

In response, some free speech activists said that this time the Russian government’s policy will strengthen the government’s supervision of the state network. Because under this law, all communications operators, messengers, and email providers, as well as state and security agencies, must take the test. This will allow the authorities to decide on their own access to and restrictions on resources and information, and to a certain extent give the Russian government the opportunity to implement a comprehensive online censorship system. But Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that the free Internet and the sovereign Internet are not contradictory!

It is reported that the bill aims to transmit Russian network traffic and data through sites controlled by national authorities and establish a national domain name system, which will end Russia’s current state of dependence on foreign network systems. A Russian Ministry of Communications spokesman said that the test will be exploratory, and the goal of the participants is to identify potential external influences on Russia’s Internet and communications infrastructure.

Via: defenseone