Russia, ready for cyber war, will disconnect from the Internet | Chronic

Russia will disconnect temporarily from the Internet before April 1, as part of a test aimed at anticipating a blocking scenario – in the context of a future cyberwar – in order to ensure that the data exchanged by its citizens remain within the borders of the country.

The action, the exact date of which is not known, is part of the measures provided for in a law pbaded last December that requires network operators to make the necessary changes to operate independently, the report said. RosbiznesKonsalting News Agency (RBK). ), quoted by the European media.

The exercise will seek information to include in this law amendments on aspects to improve to ensure the independence of the "Rutnet" (the Russian Internet space) in case of foreign aggression.

According to the standard, network operators must guarantee thetechnical means"Reorient all Russian Internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, the agency that controls telecommunications in the Eurasian country.

The agency will inspect the traffic to block the prohibited content and ensure that the traffic between Russian users stays in the country and is not redirected via servers to the foreigner, where it could be intercepted, the BBC reported, citing the RBK.

The test should be conducted before April 1, when it will complete the deadline for the introduction of amendments to the law, known as the National Program for the Digital Economy.

Its realization was approved at a meeting of the working group of telecommunication and cybersecurity companies of the program, among which are Kaspersky Lab, MegaFon, Beeline, MTS and RosTelecom.

According to RBK, these companies support the law, but believe that the technical implementation of this disconnection exercise will lead to significant interruptions in Russian Internet traffic.

According to the ZDnet hardware site, the Kremlin has been working on this project for years and plans to route 95% of all Internet traffic locally by 2020.

According to this publication, the government even created a local backup of the Domain Name System (DNS), which they tested for the first time in 2014, then in 2018, and which would be an important element of Runet when the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connectivity) are planning to disconnect the country from the rest of the world.

The United States and NATO countries frequently accuse Russia of being at the origin of numerous cyber attacks, including some against the critical infrastructure of its neighbor and rival Ukraine, as well as international attempts such as the "NotPetya", which affected in 2017 hundreds of companies around the world.