All news

Genuine information war underway in CSTO zone of responsibility — official

According to the official, the coordinated information attacks originate in different countries and are carried out not by lone hackers but by "government structures"

SOCHI, July 6. /TASS/. A real information war has been unleashed in the zone of responsibility of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with an exponential growth of computer attacks, a representative of the CSTO Secretariat said on Wednesday.

"The number of cyberattacks on information infrastructures of our states is growing. An exponential growth in computer attacks is observed and their number has increased several-fold, with the majority of them being of a comprehensive nature. This year, challenges in this sphere became even more critical, serious and more extensive. Essentially, real aggression has been unleashed, a war in the information space of the CSTO’s zone of responsibility," Alexander Kuznetsov said at the Ninth Forum on Information Security in Sochi.

According to the official, the coordinated information attacks originate in different countries and are carried out not by lone hackers but by "government structures." "It is known for a fact that the armed forces of some states include so-called cybertroops. In some countries, the structures of this kind have existed for over ten years," he added. "Targeted attempts are made to disable the Internet resources of the components of critically important information infrastructure of our countries," the CSTO representative said.

He explained that above all, the attacks target media outlets, financial institutions, state bodies, socially significant portals and networks as well as medical and other facilities. "The most advanced algorithms and combined technologies are used. Increasingly more complex software is used, capable of damaging devices and various operational systems," the official stressed.