Russian Foreign Ministry To Establish Special Cybersecurity Department - Moscow

A special department for information security will be established within the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told Sputnik on Monday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2018) A special department for information security will be established within the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told Sputnik on Monday.

"The ministry has been actively engaged in this [issue of cybersecurity]. A special department for information security will be established in the ministry in the very near future as an administrative response to the emergence of this issue, which is becoming more and more urgent," Ulyanov said.

According to Ulyanov, the positions of Russia and its Western partners on the issue of cybersecurity are still not aligned due to differing objectives.

The Russian National Cyberthreat Response Center earlier in December said that heavy cyberattacks from abroad targeted Russian information resources. Over 4 billion attacks were conducted on key information infrastructure in 2018, while 2.4 billion were detected in 2017.

The issue of cybersecurity is on top of the defense agenda of numerous countries, including Russia, since cyberattacks can inflict major damage on governments, economies and individuals.