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June 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
That same month – March 2019 – saw the arrest of Vsevolod Opanasenko, director-general and founder of the Russian supercomputer company T-Platforms, for abuse of office.
The most shocking arrest was that of US citizen Michael Calvey, the founder of Baring Vostok Capital Partners, under controversial charges
Russia to dramatical hike fines for data theft
Hackers are preying on Russian’s personal data and the number of crimes have ballooned. The government is responding with a dramatic hike
to the fines for stealing information, but some experts say the proposed measures are too harsh, especially at a time of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Russian government has already been accused of being a “Big Brother” and the issue of personal data stored on servers in Russia remains a high sensitive one.
Databases containing personal data are freely available in Russia’s black market. Lists containing personal information like addresses, car ownership, tax numbers and the like used to be on sale on CDs are the open air Fili media market in Moscow until the authorities finally managed to shut it down. But now the trade has simply shifted online.
Client data belonging to Russia’s largest lender state-controlled bank Sberbank was stolen last year and went on sale on shadow online platforms last October in one of the biggest data heists in Russian history. Likewise one of Russia’s largest private banks Alfa Bank reportedly had a leak of credit card
in February 2019. One of the most established Russian private equity firms, Baring Vostok invested in top Russian tech companies.
Calvey and his colleagues, including French banker Philippe Delpal, have maintained their innocence, but they are still under house arrest or in pre-trial detention.
and insurance contract identities a month later and sample of the client data that was sold in October had already lead to several fraud attempts. Russia’s banks are already reporting cybercrimes worth tens of millions of dollars a year.
Under the proposed changes to Russia's administrative code by the country's justice ministry, the maximum fine for leaking private data should be raised from the current RUB50,000 ($724) to RUB500,000 ($7,240).
Under the proposal, fines for individual entrepreneurs would increase from RUB20,000 to RUB300,000, for officials from RUB10,000
to RUB100,000 and for regular citizens from RUB2,000 to RUB20,000.
The idea of raising fines for leaking private data was first floated in 2015 when the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russian Parliament, considered raising the maximum fine to RUB300,000, but the initiative was never finalized.
The justice ministry's proposal is expected to undergo a public discussion and will have to be