From April 27-30, the first Interregional Conference, Infoforum-Kaliningrad, is taking place at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. More than 350 representatives from federal and regional authorities, experts, and IT executives from 20 Russian regions, as well as from Belarus, Tajikistan, and India, are taking part. Experts have gathered to discuss the current state and challenges of information security, personnel training, digital resilience, and technological development.
The plenary session, Digital Development and New Information Security Solutions, moderated by Deputy Minister of Digital Development Alexander Shoitov, focused on changes in Russian legislation regarding the security of critical information infrastructure, as well as current challenges and threats to businesses in information security. Participants also discussed ongoing global negotiations on international information security and the development of international cooperation among prosecutors in combating the use of ICT for criminal purposes.
Minister of Digital Technologies for the Kaliningrad Region, Marat Fatkhullin, emphasized that attackers are increasingly using artificial intelligence, and their attacks have become less formulaic. Their primary targets are critical infrastructure and government systems, which underpin defense, energy, transportation, and finance.
“The cost of vulnerability here is measured not only in economic losses, but also in citizens’ safety and trust in government institutions,” said Fatkhullin.
Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, spoke at the session Network Security: User-Focused Solutions and Practices. In his report, The End of the Anonymous Domains Era, he outlined changes to the domain market set to take effect on September 1, 2026. The main changes stem from Federal Law No. 569-FZ of December 29, 2025, On Amendments to the Federal Law On Information, Information Technology and Protection of Information and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation. These include mandatory identification of all domain registrants through the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA, the government services portal Gosuslugi), as well as a special procedure for registering domain names for government customers. Furthermore, the Terms and Conditions of Domain Name Registration will be granted the status of an official document approved by the Russian government.
Andrey Vorobyev emphasized that identification through the ESIA is beneficial for registrants: it establishes a unified identification mechanism, eliminating the need to provide scanned documents to each registrar. Domain transfers from one registrar to another are simplified, and the domain in question becomes almost completely protected from theft and other fraudulent activity.
“The ESIA system for domains can be compared to a verified bank account. You verify your identity once, after which all transactions become safer for you and those around you,” the Coordination Center director noted.
The speaker confirmed that this approach benefits both the RuNet ecosystem and society as a whole. It reduces legal risks and improves the overall security of the national domain zone, which will ultimately be cleared of malicious domains. Mandatory identification through the ESIA will critically complicate the mass registration of phishing domains under false pretenses. The number of fake government, bank, and marketplace websites will be significantly reduced: all of these will be more difficult to create if registration requires genuine identification. The level of intellectual property protection for domain names will be increased. Combating cybersquatting will become easier, as copyright holders will be able to reliably identify the real domain registrant. Illegal businesses such as casinos, drug dealers, and illegal lotteries will lose the ability to mass-register disposable domains.
“A fraud-free RuNet is not a utopia, but the result of consistent work that we must accomplish together. After that, we can talk about increasing trust in national top-level domains that have become verified. This will benefit the reputation of the RuNet as a whole, including how it is perceived internationally,” concluded Andrey Vorobyev.
