As the war goes on between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian side is getting more and more alone every day. Many countries and companies around the world are applying sanctions against Russia as an economical war. Also, some big companies such as Microsoft and Oracle are withdrawing their services from the country. In addition, Anonymous hackers are going on battling against the Russian government.
Related stories:
- Microsoft suspending sales in Russia
- Oracle suspending its operations in Russia
- The ongoing cyberwar between Ukraine and Russia
Tightening the measures every day
While all of those happening, the Russian government is trying to take measures against the potential damage of sanctions, cyberwar, war and anti-war propaganda, and more. As a part of the measures against propaganda, Russia has blocked some social media platforms from the country, while some of the services cut their operations already. Additionally, the government going further in its measures by forcing a new rule related to the management of the internet infrastructure.
#Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global Internet
No later than March 11, all servers and domains must be transferred to the #Russian zone. In addition, detailed data on the network infrastructure of the sites is being collected. pic.twitter.com/wOCdRqOJej
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 6, 2022
According to a leaked document claimed to be an order from Andrei Chernenko, deputy digital development minister of Russia, the country is switching to DNS servers that are located within the borders. In addition, public resources on foreign hosting and their domains will be moved to Russian servers and domain zone, .ru, respectively. The government also wants all JavaScript codes that have been downloaded from foreign sources to be purged from the websites. The deadline for those requirements is March 11, 2022.
Russia states that they have no intention to cut off the internet. However, those might also be the steps going towards disconnection from the globe. The Russian government has been making some preparations in 2019 by disconnecting from the internet, which might be an explanation for those orders.
As an interesting note, the Ukrainian officials have requested to remove Russia from the internet and got denied at the beginning of March.