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Russia stands for developing legal tool to fight cyber hooliganism

The diplomat sais a draft universal UN convention on cooperation in countering information crimes developed by the Russian side can become such an instrument
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova Mikhail Dzhparidze/TASS
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
© Mikhail Dzhparidze/TASS

MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Russia consistently stands for the adoption of a criminal law instrument to counter cyber hooliganism and crimes in the information sphere, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

"Russia has long and consistently been advocating the adoption of a criminal law instrument, which would be aimed at fighting crimes committed for the sake of profiting in the international information space and cyber hooliganism," the spokeswoman said.

"A draft universal UN convention on cooperation in countering information crimes developed by the Russian side can become such an instrument," the diplomat said.

"The draft contains some provisions directly aimed at struggling against intentional unlawful access to electronic information, i.e. against hacker attacks," she added.

Following US accusations, now German special services have accused Russia of hacker attacks on servers of the OSCE - an international organization responsible for security and stability in Europe, Zakharova said.

"This time again, Moscow has not received any official inquiries from competent bodies authorized to investigate such incidents," the Russian diplomat noted.

"Only one conclusion can be made: as before, our partners have no proofs or facts. These accusations look especially absurd considering that just a month ago Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed a plan of action at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg to strengthen trust in the information space. The very first point in that plan included a postulate about the need to raise the role and the efficiency of the OSCE in settling cyber-incidents, in particular, by assisting to direct dialog on this platform," the diplomat said.

Russia is one of the world leaders in the sphere of cyber-security, Zakharova said.

"In the course of many years, Russia has been one of the locomotives for the elaboration of initiatives aimed at ensuring international information security," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

"These initiatives include a concept of the UN Convention on international information security, the rules of behavior in the field of ensuring international information security prepared within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the above-mentioned plan of action for OSCE and many other documents," she said.

According to the diplomat, "the Russian side is ready for any cooperation in countering hacker attacks and has specific proposals in this field." The Russian diplomat also expressed the hope that "partners will stop shifting responsibility from themselves onto us [Russia] and instead will begin assessing the situation soberly and independently."