10 years prison time for hackers, Russia plans new law

Proposed amendments to the Russian Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code will bring a miserable life for cyber criminals and wannabe hackers earmarking attacks against Russian infrastructure.

The law, currently a draft, has been registered with State Duma’s lower chamber. It introduces a new article called “Illegal influence upon the crucial information infrastructure of the Russian Federation.”

A penalty of up to 1 million rubles ($15,700) and a prison sentence of up to 5 years has been proposed for creation and distribution for programs leading to destruction, blocking, or copying data from the Russian System.

The prisons time can be up to 10 years if the attacks conclude towards severe upshots.

So, it can be assumed that even if a person creates a malware but doesn’t take part in the crime is subject to criminal prosecution.

A hacker will have to pay a fine of up to 2 million rubles (USD 31,500) if he produces unauthorized access to protected information. He can be subjected to 6 years of forced labor and 6 years prison sentence.

This is an important move for Russia as cybercrime is on the rise. Financial damages costing hundreds of billions of dollars have been incurred due to malicious software.

Earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin signed an approved doctrine of information security, a set of official views to create and maintain laws preventing Russia from cyber attacks.