The war between Ukraine and Russia is getting hotter every moment; both in the field and the cyber world. Many reports are coming from the cybersecurity area; the sides are trying to hack each others’ systems all the time. Even the well-known hacking group, Anonymous, has stepped in and currently they are supporting Ukraine.
Revoking TLDs, SSL certificates
Several countries have pushed the buttons to apply very heavy economical sanctions against Russia. Now, the Ukrainian officials ask for one more step: banning Russia from the internet. Ukrainian representative at Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Andrii Nabok, and Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov asked to revoke domains of Russian organizations. To be more specific, they ask for revoking Russian top-level domains (TLD) like .ru, and .su as well as their SSL certificates.
Russia has tested unplugging itself from the global internet last year; it might not affect their military infrastructure at all
In addition, the officials are asking to remove Russia and Local Internet Registries (LIR) rights to use IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and block the DNS root servers for the country. The officials are asking for those measures to stop the propaganda and the ongoing cyberattacks of the Russian government. Currently, Russian hackers are constantly trying to breach Ukrainian networks to place destructive, data-wiping malware on the systems.
The ICANN and RIPE NCC members and officials are currently standing against this proposition. They think removing Russia from the internet does not help support the civil society for a democratic change. And they think ICANN and RIPE NCC should remain neutral.
Russia might be ready for this
In the middle of 2021, Russia has temporarily disconnected itself from the global internet to test its systems. If Ukrainian officials’ requests get approved and Russia gets banned out of the global internet, it might not affect their military organization since they have been testing this condition. However, the propaganda outside Russia and the hacking activities would most likely be ceased immediately.