Russia's State Duma finally adopts Runet security bill

Russia's State Duma adopted a bill ensuring security and availability of Russian Internet (Runet) in case of its isolation from the global network today in a final third reading.

The legislation is co-authored by chair of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas, his deputy Lyudmila Bokova and MP Andrey Lugovoy.

The initiative envisages creation of infrastructure that would assure security and operability of Russian Internet resources in case of inaccessibility of national providers’ connection to foreign root servers.

According to the final version of the law, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media will be responsible for "the coordination of ensuring the stable, secure and seamless function of the Internet in Russia." It is provided that in case threats to stable Internet operation in Russia arise the service "can exercise centralized control over the communication network of general use." Moreover, the government can determine the types of threats and measures to eliminate them.

The law in particular stipulates development of a national system for receipt of information about domain names or network addresses. It is understood as "the aggregate of interconnected software and hardware intended for storage and receipt of information about network addresses in respect of domain names, including the ones included into the Russian national domain zone, and authorization when permitting domain names."

Requirements to this system, the procedure of its establishment and rules of use will be determined by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. This agency will also be responsible for registration of persons authorized to form domain names being part of the national domain zone.

The document has been drafted taking into account "a violent nature of the U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy adopted in September 2018," an explanatory note to the initiative reads. The Strategy accuses Russia of committing hacking attacks without evidence, according to the draft law’s sponsors.

Lawmakers believe that under such conditions there is a need for protective measures to ensure a long-term and robustness of Internet in Russia and to improve performance reliability of Russian websites, RAPSI reported.

The bill is expected to take effect on November 1, 2019, if signed into law. It must now be approved by parliament’s upper house and the presidency,

Provisions on information cryptosecurity and national system of domain names are to become effective on January 1, 2021.