Russia may legalize hackers' activities

A group of deputies from the United Russia and New People parties has prepared a bill on the legalization of "white" hackers in Russia, with the document to soon be submitted to Russia's State Duma.

Report informs via Izvestiya that, according to the explanatory note for the editors, companies will be able to carry out activities to identify the weaknesses of information systems with the involvement of “white” hackers on their terms.

"Such tests are carried out in the form of penetration testing, in which the customer instructs a specific contractor to work out various scenarios for penetrating an information system and demonstrate the practical possibility of implementing certain information security threats in it," the explanatory note says.

They can also be implemented in the form of a Bug Bounty program, when the customer offers to carry out such work to third-party specialists.

According to one of the authors of the bill, its adoption will strengthen the mechanism for carrying out measures to identify weaknesses in the security system that can be used by attackers for illegal purposes.