Russia Braces for Cyberwar Ahead of National Elections
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As political battles heat up, the Kremlin is accused of crippling the websites of opposition parties, as well as media outlets.
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Â· Police stand by as thousands gather Â· Kremlin claims coming elections will be fair
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President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia was preparing to take preventive action against terrorists, the Interfax news agency reported.
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Computer hackers hitting Estonia's websites during its current spat with Russia could be acting alone.
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Russian First Deputy Prime Minister  Dmitry Medvedev, a frontrunner for the presidency next year,  will hold a live nationwide Web conference next month - a forum  normally reserved for President Vladimir Putin.
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Mexico&#039;s presidential candidates have moved into cyberspace, where the campaigns are bombarding voters with online games, cartoons and attack e-mails ahead of the July 2 vote.
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Will political forces split the internet root? ICANN 2007 Los Angeles The Washington Post reported unwelcome news yesterday for our internet overlords - as internet penetration in Russia grows exponentially, the story claims, Vladimir Putin's allies are increasingly focused on strong-arming blogs and internet news sources in Russia to get their message across, efforts which may extend to the internet root itself.â¦
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"These attacks came directly from the IP address of the (Russian) president's office"  Estonia will propose at a meeting of European Union justice ministers next week that the bloc consider cyber attacks as "acts of terror", Estonian Justice Minister Rein Lang said Thursday. via Baku Today
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Russia holds regional polls on Sunday, viewed as dress rehearsals for this year's parliamentary vote and a 2008 presidential election, with a liberal party sidelined and the Kremlin expected to tighten its grip on power.
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Estonia is seeking help from Russia to  find the culprits behind a massive wave of attacks on the  country's Internet infrastructure, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip  said on Wednesday.
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There has been more violence in the strife-torn republic of Chechnya, just days before the Russian region is due to elect a new president.
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MOSCOW. June 4 (Interfax) - Russian First Deputy Minister Dmitry Medvedev has confirmed that all Russian schools will have high- speed Internet access by the end of 2007.
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Russia holds regional polls on Sunday viewed as a dress rehearsal for this year's parliamentary vote and a 2008 presidential election, with a liberal party sidelined and the Kremlin expected to tighten its grip on power.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin stood beside Ukraine's pro-Moscow presidential hopeful to review a Soviet-style military spectacle, just days before a tense vote seen as a choice between closer ties with Russia or the West.
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KRASNOYASK, Russia  - Russia's  president-in-waiting Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday media  freedoms are guaranteed in Russia -- by the Internet.
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(InfoWorld) - A Russian computer security expert predicts that terrorists could seek to target the country's critical infrastructure through electronic warfare, a strategy that could raise the stakes in how Russia handles computer crime. While terrorists aren't believed to currently have the know-how to disrupt critical infrastructure, it would be "very dangerous" if they start learning, said Valery Vasenin, head of the Computer Security Department at the Institute for Information Security Problems (IISP) at Moscow State University. "I think the phenomenon of terrorism will go in this direction," Vasenin said in an interview at his office. "This is probably the most important problem for the coming years." Russia's energy grid is a possible target, which could cause widespread blackouts. The air transportation or fuel distribution systems are other possible targets, Vasenin said. Russia has experienced chilling episodes of terrorism. In September 2004, 331 people, more than half of whom were children, were killed when Chechen separatists stormed a school in Beslan. In October 2002, Chechen rebels took 850 people hostage in a Moscow theater; 117 died after Russian forces used a poisonous gas before entering the premises. No major cyberterrorism incident in Russia has been recorded. However, the country's infrastructure is becoming more networked and less isolated than before, which could make it more vulnerable to cyberattacks, Vasenin said. "Russia, at the moment, is average in terms of computer security, like the rest of the world," Vasenin said. In the 1990s, the Internet in Russia was still viewed as something of a domain for academics, Vasenin said. But the rapid change of technology and emergence of threats has led to greater attention to security issues, he said. Moscow State University's IISP was established in 2004 to study network security, the psychology of human behavior and the Internet, along with computer forensics and judicial issues. Russia lacks laws that clearly define computer crime, he said, making it difficult for Internal Affairs Ministry agents to investigate and bring cases. IISP is studying other countries' computer crime laws and formulating recommendations. "They [the Internal Affairs Ministry] are somewhat unarmed," Vasenin said. "We understand we [Russia] have these problems related to legislation, just as there are worldwide problems." Through June, Russia recorded 8,400 computer-related crimes, according to figures released by the Internal Affairs Ministry in October. Forty-three percent of the cases were related to online auction fraud, with the remainder comprising information theft, unauthorized access, child pornography violations and others, the ministry said. Boris Miroshnikov, who heads the cybercrime department in Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry, has called for more trained experts to handle criminal cases that often cross international borders. Miroshnikov's comments at a cybersecurity conference were published earlier this year by Moscow State University. "Do we have today a school of experts in the field of cybercrimes?" Miroshnikov told conference participants. "Unfortunately, I do not think so." (Pavel Kupriyanov of Computerworld Russia contributed to this report.) Â
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KIEV : Ukraine stepped up security nationwide as it braced for a landmark presidential election fraught with East-West rivalries certain to impact the course of one of Europe&#39;s largest states for years ahead.