Russian military-industrial complex announced a ban on the use of WhatsApp and Zoom for work

Business communication between defense industry employees in WhatsApp, Skype and Zoom has become stricter suppressed by the management

A source in the military-industrial complex (MIC) said that all corporate and working chats of employees of the Rostec State Corporation and its subsidiary holdings and companies are to be transferred from WhatsApp to another messenger in the near future.

According to him, this decision was made due to the fact that the management of the messenger WhatsApp announced changes in the privacy policy and the transfer of additional personal data of users to Facebook. “At the same time, employees of the state corporation and its enterprises will still be allowed to have WhatsApp on their personal phones for personal communication,” added the source.

A second source in the military-industrial complex said that the ban on the use of foreign applications for work purposes by employees of the MIC has always existed, but not all employees paid due attention to it. “Both now and before, it was simply impossible to install WhatsApp or Skype on a work computer. But to speed up communication processes and their own convenience, many employees unauthorizedly used Zoom, Skype and so on,” explained he.

Rostec confirmed that there are restrictions on the use of foreign applications such as Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, etc., specifying that these applications are prohibited to be installed on corporate laptops and computers.

Instead, it is proposed to use domestic solutions, including Rostec’s own developments. “In particular, throughout the pandemic, online meetings were held on the IVA platform,” said Rostec.

The personal equipment of employees are not affected by these restrictions, the press service of the state corporation clarified, assuring that they have nothing to do with the new policy of WhatsApp: “The risks did not arise now, they have always existed, and we were obliged to mitigate them.”

Rostec is a major industrial company that operates in the defense sector and develops high-tech civilian areas – in aviation, engine construction, electronics, medicine, pharmaceuticals and other areas. “This dictates very serious requirements to information security”, summed up the press service of the state corporation.