connected
All personal data operators in Russia may soon need to connect to the government system to detect, prevent and eliminate the consequences of FSB-managed cyber attacks (GosSOPKA). This is due to the wording of the bill designed to strengthen the data protection of Russians, published on the State Duma portal on April 6.
“The bill introduces the obligation of operators to promptly report incidents related to their personal databases to the competent authorities, as well as to ensure continuous interaction with the government system to detect, prevent and eliminate the consequences of computer attacks on information resources. of the Russian Federation “,
– reads the text of the explanatory note.
Pavel Korostelev, Head of the Department of Promotion of Products in the Security Code, explained that the main function of GosSOPKA is to protect against cyber attacks and collect, not eliminate their consequences, despite the existence of the terms from which the abbreviation is parsed. information about events in affiliated companies. According to him, GosSOPKA is a kind of event log for collecting analytics across the country, in which measures to combat cybercriminals are developed.
“GosSOPKA is needed to record events. In other words, companies that process personal data will have to report cybersecurity-related incidents to GosSOPKA. If an attacker enters the network, the system will allow you to respond faster to the incident and catch, for example, a cybercriminal. Currently, only critical infrastructure facilities and some government agencies are connected to the system,” he said.
It is not worth waiting for companies to instantly become more secure than the fact of connecting to GosSOPKA, but in no case should the procedure be considered useless.
“There is an exchange of information within the system. Notifications are sent about current threats, critical vulnerabilities, techniques and tactics used by attackers. Now not all data operators, especially small and medium-sized businesses, have the opportunity to independently search, analyze and use this information at home. If they get this information from GosSOPKA, they will be able to save on creating corporate information security, ”said Alexei Novikov, director of the security expert center at Positive Technologies.
He is confident that this feature will eventually lead to an increase in the level of information security in Russian companies and reduce the number of leaks.
In turn, Boris Edidin, Deputy Head of the Digital Economy Legal Support Commission of the Moscow Branch of the Russian Bar Association, noted that a similar system has been and has been used in EU countries for a long time to inform state institutions about events. It is an essential tool for minimizing the consequences of data leaks.
it doesn’t look like much
At the same time, many experts fear that the connection of companies with GosSOPKA will not go smoothly. As a minimum, due to the number of organizations that are legal operators of personal data.
According to Alexandra Orekhovich, director of legal initiatives at the Internet Enterprises Development Fund (IIDF), an operator is any individual, state or municipal body that processes personal data, independently or together with other persons. Thus, these include schools, hotels, travel agencies, online shops, ridesharing, and many other types of businesses large and small that receive not only passport data from customers, but also addresses, phone numbers, and other personal information.
“As of April 12, 2022, there are 438,460 organizations in the Register of Operators Processing Personal Data of Roskomnadzor,” said Alexei Parfentiev, Head of SearchInform Analytics Department.
In turn, the director of the technical department of RTM Group Fedor Muzalevsky believes that even individual entrepreneurs fit the definition of a personal data operator. As a result, according to him, the number of potential subscribers of GosSOPKA increases to 6 million.
“GosSOPKA still has very little computing power. Therefore, there are difficulties in analyzing, responding to and preventing events. In fact, with the main tasks for which it was created, ”said the expert.
At the same time, he noted that the capacity of the system will be expanded in the near future and this gives hope that the National Coordination Center for Computer Events (NCCC), the FSB structure that sustains GosSOPKA, will have the resources to be interconnected. all data operators.
Alexander Khinshtein, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, one of the authors of the bill under discussion, said that before the creation of this requirement, a consultation was held with the operators of the State SOPKA. They made sure that the connection to the system of all data operators in Russia is technically possible.
communication problems
Aleksey Parfentiev added that, in addition to the number of operators, there are other reasons that cast doubt on the implementation of the requirement specified in the draft law. For example, the expert is not sure that all businesses involved in data processing have specialists who can set up information systems for GosSOPKA.
“Large companies have their information security departments and even dedicated information security professionals who work with regulators. Of course, we will not see anything like this in the city clinic or flower shop. “The presence of information security specialists is rare, even in medium-sized companies.”
Cisco Systems Security Business Advisor Alexey Lukatsky expressed a similar opinion in an interview with socialbites.ca.
By contrast, Anton Kuzmin, head of the Center for Information Security Monitoring and CyberART Computer Incident Response at Innostage, spoke differently. According to him, the link to information interaction is now simplified as much as possible.
“It is necessary to send a written request to NKTsKI and arrange a secure channel of interaction with them,” he said.
Finally, according to Kuzmin, the data operator can always apply for a service to the GosSOPKA trading center.
Source: Gazeta
