On February 5–6, Moscow’s Digital Business Space is hosting the 27th National Information Security Forum Infoforum2025 – a central industry event in ICT and cybersecurity. Over 2,000 professionals from all economic sectors, including federal and regional authorities, local governments, academia, education, and business, have registered to participate both offline and online.
Infoforum2025 opened with a plenary session titled Russia’s Technological Leadership and National Security in the Information Sphere Through 2030. The session was moderated by Ernest Valeev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Security and Corruption Control, who highlighted a 15 percent year-on-year increase in crimes involving information technologies in 2024.
Oleg Khramov, Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council, discussed Russia’s proposed concept of global information security submitted to the United Nations. He emphasized the document’s aim to counter the use of IT as a tool for geopolitical containment and address Western efforts to hinder scientific and technological progress in the rest of the world. Mr. Khramov also noted NATO countries’ ongoing informational pressure on Russia.
The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ partnered in organizing the thematic session titled International Information Security Challenges: Data Economics and Global Trust-Building, co-moderated by Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev and Boris Miroshnikov, President of the National Association of International Information Security and Co-Chair of the Infoforum Organizing Committee.
Sergei Plakhov, Deputy Head of the International Legal Department at the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, shared alarming statistics: 1.911 million crimes were recorded in 2024, with 40 percent (765,000) linked to ICT. Cybercrime surged by over 13 percent compared to 2023. Almost half of all cybercrimes are related to fraud, whereas unauthorized access to computer data saw the highest growth – rising from 1–2 percent of total crimes in 2022–2023 to 14 percent in 2024 and trending to increase. Mr. Plakhov attributed this spike to an explosive increase in cross-border cyberattacks and lower cybercrime detection rates, with 571,000 of 765,000 cases remaining unsolved (20 percent higher than in 2023). The main reason is that most of these crimes are committed from the territory of other, primarily unfriendly, states.
Vadim Mikhailov, infrastructure consultant at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, presented a report titled Collaboration in Domain Industry Information Security, detailing the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). He noted that 93 registrars, or 3 percent of the total, joined the pilot project launched in November 2023, and while the service offers many opportunities, it has a number of drawbacks, with conflicts with national laws of many countries being the most significant one.
Olga Baskakova, project manager at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, highlighted the growth of the Domain Patrol initiative: 12 competent organizations now participate in it, with requests skyrocketing from 16,324 in 2023 to 54,977 in 2024 – a 250 percent increase. Olga Baskakova noted that the project’s response mechanism continues to advance, with 54,500 illegal resources blocked in 2024 upon requests from competent organizations.
“Looking ahead, criminals will likely intensify their exploitation of artificial intelligence to escalate cyber threats. More sophisticated phishing schemes will be developed, deep fakes will be more widely employed, fraudsters will continue to shift to messengers and apps, and domains will be used less frequently. Our task is to remain vigilant in securing the RuNet. We are bolstered by trust and collaboration among experts and companies,” Olga Baskakova stated.
Andrey Vorobyev added, “Clear examples show that national-level trust yields 100 percent results when addressing all incoming reports. Regrettably, outcomes lag at the international level, but we remain committed to progress.”
Other session participants included Artur Lyukmanov, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s International Information Security Department, Alexei Bankovsky, Head of the Information and Analytical Department of the State Secretariat of the Security Council of the Republic of Belarus, Askar Zhunisbek, Chairman of the Board of the State Technical Service, Kazakhstan, Vladislav Usovich, Deputy Head of the Export Committee of Domestic Soft, a software developers association, and other experts.
