Russian Foreign Ministry urged whole world to abandon cyber attacks on healthcare facilities during a pandemic

Against the background of the coronavirus pandemic, Moscow calls for an end to cyberattacks on healthcare facilities and critical infrastructure. This was announced on Monday, July 20, by the Russian President’s Special Representative for International Cooperation in the Field of Information Security, Director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Andrei Krutskikh.

He stressed that Russia shares the opinion of many countries that the information and communication infrastructure in the health sector is needed.

“We propose to secure the obligation for states to refrain from attacks not only on medical facilities, but also in general on the critical information infrastructure of institutions that provide vital public services,” said Krutskikh.

In particular, the diplomat noted the spheres of education, energy, transport, as well as banking and finance. In addition, he added that work on this will continue at the  United Nations platforms on international information security.

In addition, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered Germany to hold consultations on cybersecurity.

“We consider it extremely important to resume a full-scale dialogue in this format with the involvement of the necessary range of experts on international information security. This will help neutralize an unnecessary irritant in our bilateral relations and transfer interaction on the issue of information security into a practical plane,” said Krutskikh.

Moreover, the special representative commented on the situation with  Russian Dmitry Badin.
According to Krutskikh, Russia has offered Germany several times to hold consultations on information security, including in 2018, but the German side disrupted the planned talks.

Earlier, E Hacking News reported that the Office of the German Federal Public Prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for a Russian whom they suspect of hacking into the computer systems of the German Parliament in 2015. The publication reports that the suspect’s name is Dmitry Badin, he is allegedly an officer of the GRU.  Russia repeatedly denied accusations of involvement in hacker attacks.