The Central Bank acknowledged the lack of reliable protection of citizens' biometrics

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A large IT forum, organized by the FSB of Russia and dedicated to cyber threats, ended in the capital the day before. There, the Deputy Head of the Information Security Department of the Central Bank, Artem Sychev, made an important confession: the cryptographic equipment required by the special services (to protect the biometric data of citizens in the KV class - that is, at the state secret level) is absent on the Russian market.

The digital lobbyists began to actively deny this fact, the security officials then spoke not too harshly, expressing hope for a solution to the problem in the future. One way or another, the main thing we heard is that the security of unified databases of the population and the federal program “digital economy” tied to it is not ensured. At the same time, the “other head” of the Central Bank in the person of the first deputy chairman of Nabiullina Olga Skorobogatova aggressively demands that the usurers fulfill the “standard” for collecting biometrics of Russians. In the context of a hybrid war against Russia unfolding before our eyes, such actions raise big questions about where the FSB is looking.

“In order to encrypt the collected images sent to the unified biometric system (EBS), it is necessary to integrate special equipment (HSM-module) into the systems, and then obtain the keys of the electronic signature certificates of the KB class. KV-class keys are produced only by FGBU NII Voskhod, and the procedure for issuing keys was approved only in mid-October.

There is no method for correctly embedding HSM; after integrating the module, you need to get the conclusion of the FSB. But it is unrealistic to get an FSB opinion without a methodology,”Kommersant quotes its sources in several banks.

At the same time, Mr. Sychev also states that the Central Bank is ready to offer banks other solutions to the issue of information security in the collection of biometrics, which supposedly also meet the requirements of the FSB. However, the interlocutors of journalists say the exact opposite: there is no additional encryption in their data transmission channels today.

At the same time, large credit organizations, in particular, Sberbank and VTB, are already in full swing collecting biometrics from their clients and placing biometric ATMs. According to the order of the same Central Bank, by the end of the year the collection of biometrics should be provided by 20% of the country's banks in 4000 branches. In addition, plans have already been announced to assign each Russian citizen a life-long personal number in the huge unified state register of personal data from 2019. Why such an insane rush when it is impossible to keep the most important information safe?

If you remember how at the beginning of September this year. Elvira Sakhipzadovna swore allegiance to the owners of the IMF in Washington, promised to continue to strictly follow the precepts of Mr. Camdessus and Mrs. Lagarde - i.e. bleeding the national economy, stifling the money supply, not limiting the export of capital from the country, massively buying up US government bonds, and now also controlling the imposition of digital slavery in Russia, everything will become clearer.

The fact that Rostelecom is the developer of the solution for connecting banks to the EBS will also add clarity. Its representatives, by the way, reported that there is complete order with security and it is time to increase the rate of collection of biometrics without looking back. More information about the methods of operation of Rostelecom can be found in our material "Digital profanation: a state monopoly operator receives billions for system failures in the Unified Information System and the Unified State Register of Legal Entities". Let us remind you again that this state contract trough under the Government (68% of Rostelecom's shares are owned by the state) are headed by old-timers from the St. and ex-head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov, the president is the former vice-governor of St. Petersburg, ex-deputy minister of economic development and ex-deputy chairman of the board of VTB Mikhail Oseevsky.

It is no less interesting that, being a state-owned company, the operator of biometric data of Russian citizens works in extremely close relationship with the largest American and British strategic consulting companies. Strategies for Rostelecom are being developed, for example, by BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP (Russian office of Boston Consulting Group LLC (see tenders) and Bisigi LLC (see tenders), wholly British capital). Also, it was not without familiar American auditors, who, as has long been known, are assigned to each ministry of “our” Government - PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS (see tenders) and MCKINSEY & COMPANY (see tenders), etc.

Does anyone sincerely believe that these foreign companies are working in the interests of Russia, Russian citizens and their safety? That they are interested in the true sovereignty of our country? There is hardly a single such complacent romantic.

In the meantime, we prefer to buy foreign software and drown our own developments, international hackers do not sleep. A new flurry of cyberattacks on the country began after the ukroprovocation in the Kerch Strait. It all started, by the way, with telephone threats about mining all large Moscow shopping centers and Kievsky railway station. Then a coordinated attack from six countries began on the websites of government agencies, and the Federal Customs Service was least fortunate. A serious malfunction of the FCS server led to the complete cessation of electronic registration of goods in the country. At the moment, information exchange between foreign economic activity participants and electronic archives of declarants in the customs authorities of all customs departments of the country, without exception, has been completely suspended. However, the business community is confident that the system will not recover until Monday, according to Fontanka. The losses of the Russian economy from this digital blow alone can be measured in billions of rubles.

Add to this fresh information from Sberbank about six unprecedented DDoS attacks in recent days (RBC information), as well as Vedomosti just two days ago reported that the taxpayer's personal account (FTS website) is working with serious interruptions. The tax authorities have already been “broken” more than once, and one can imagine what chaos our economy will go into, what huge losses the country will suffer if these sabotage continues. And how you can use fingerprints, voice samples and a detailed photo of your face along with a full health card, payment details and home address from the ESIA and EBS (all this “valiantly protects” by Rostelecom) is just scary to think.

We are not talking about "small things", for example, of such a plan: as TASS reported on November 29, a resident of Kurgan received a two-year suspended sentence for hacking the websites of the governments of Russian regions (using the service equipment of the attacked servers). According to the regional FSB, dozens of companies - municipal unitary enterprises, health care institutions, commercial firms and government bodies of the Chelyabinsk, Oryol, Yaroslavl regions, as well as the Altai Republic - have suffered from the illegal actions of the cunning bitcoin miner.

At the same time, our officials and “digital evangelists” like bankster German Gref, Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov, or the head of the Ministry of Digital Arts Maxim Noskov are aiming at some “smart cities”, preparing to buy “turnkey” technologies from respected Chinese partners who make digital fascism the basis their state. What kind of digital sovereignty are we talking about, if even in our MFCs they disown guilt for copying private data that has not been deleted from "shared computers"? All this can only result in total control through Western technologies, as Igor Ashmanov, a specialist in artificial intelligence, clearly highlighted this topic. And something even tells us: the gentlemen in the Central Bank, the Government and Rostelecom are well aware of this and just continue to do their job.