Russian government advises Putin to mandate domestic antivirus software and ‘secure’ the Internet

In a new policy plan drafted for President Putin, the Russian government is recommending a law requiring the installation of Russian antivirus software on all computers imported or manufactured in the Eurasian Economic Union, effective by the second quarter of 2019, according to a report by the news agency RBC.

According to Denis Mateev, the head of ESET, a Slovakian IT security company, foreign software currently makes up no more than 5 percent of Russia’s antivirus market, though he didn’t specify what share of the computers in Russia are sold without antivirus software of any kind.

The government’s new policy plan, titled “Digital Economy,” also aims to bring high speed Internet connections to 97 percent of the homes in Russia by 2024, with 95 percent of this traffic passing through Russian networks. The government also wants to reduce the share of foreign computer equipment in state agencies to below 50 percent, and foreign software to just 10 percent.

Next year, the government says Russia should develop a system for ensuring the Russian Internet’s “stability and security,” after which the state can introduce “filtration” to protect children using the Internet.

Russian Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov says the plan will be presented to Putin on July 5.