On January 21, a meeting of the Netoscope project participants was held, traditionally organized by the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ. During the meeting, participants reviewed the results of 2025 and discussed plans for 2026.
Director of the Coordination Center Andrey Vorobyev emphasized that combating the use of domains for illegal activities is currently a key focus for both government authorities and the professional community.
“The year 2026 is shaping up to be a period of major change for the entire Russian domain industry. As early as this fall, identification of domain name administrators through the Unified Identification and Authentication System will become mandatory. This measure will significantly hinder the illegal use of domain names in Russia’s national domains and enhance security and trust in the Runet. At the end of December, a law was signed that will prohibit anonymous domain registration in national domain zones starting in September 2026. In addition, the status of the Rules for Registration of Domain Names in the .RU and .РФ domains is being elevated, with all amendments to the Rules to be approved at the government level,” Andrey Vorobyev said.
He also noted that, under the new law, an institution of so-called “special registrars” is being established. These registrars will be responsible for registering and maintaining domain names in the .RU and .РФ domains for government authorities at all levels. This measure is intended to prevent fraudulent activity involving such domains. For example, a domain previously registered by a government body will not become available for registration by third parties after its registration period expires.
Olga Baskakova, Project Manager at the Coordination Center, presented the results of 2025 and outlined future plans for the Netoscope project. The project’s database currently includes more than 5.3 million domain names, with 49.2% being second-level domains and 50.8% third-level domains and below. In 2025, 77,698 malicious resources were added to the database – 2.1 times fewer than in the previous year (167,413). Of these, 55,766 were phishing sites and 22,133 were associated with malware distribution.
The meeting continued with a discussion and exchange of views conducted in the format of a popular television quiz show. Participants selected one of several proposed topics, ranging from trends for 2026 to the use of artificial intelligence in ensuring Runet security, and shared their experience, expertise, and recent developments related to their chosen subjects. The discussion proved lively and engaging, and several speakers received prizes from the Netoscope project.
“Netoscope is a platform for live communication among project participants. The format of the annual meetings enables us to identify the most pressing challenges, ensure rapid information exchange in the event of incidents, and develop new approaches to combating abuse within the DNS system,” Olga Baskakova concluded.
Netoscope is a research platform established in 2012 to aggregate information on malicious resources in national top-level domains. Currently, 15 Russian companies participate in the project.
