Well, this is what is being discussed on some of the technology forums such as Reddit right now.
The news is out that Russia is preparing a simulatory cyber attack on its own nation in order to protect the national network from a potential cyber war with the US that could see President Donald Trump cut down online access to the entire Russian Federation.
Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting(RBK) is the first news resource to report on this issue and disclosed that the simulation is aimed to help the federal authorities to gather info and provide feedback on a proposed law introduced by the state in December 2018.
As per the new law, all state ISPs must ensure that the internet in the region runs smoothly and independently in the event of a cyber attack from an adversary.
Note 1- Those reading this article should get the fact that like many nations in Asia, Russia’s web access depends a lot on the so-called “Exchange Points” from the United States. So, if the western country led by Trump decides to block access to Russia by shutting down the exchange points, then the whole web connecting populace in Asia will have to go dark the next.
Thus, under the new rule which was proposed in the Parliament, Russian telecom firms have been ordered to install technical hardware and software to re-route net traffic when any untoward occurs.
Also, the Russian data watchdog plans to keep a tab on the network traffic going out of the nation through these exchange points and so is insisting in bringing the proposed order to live as soon as possible.
Highly placed sources report that the simulator test is being proposed before March 15th,2019 and is said to be a part of complex cyber defense tactic proposed by Russia Intelligence in November 2017.
In the year 2017, Russian officials said that all the internet traffic will be routed locally by 2020.
Note 2- NATO nations recently decided to hit out hard at Russia in this year, after they felt that the nation was posing a severe cyber threat to their national digital assets.
So, Russia might have decided to take proactive cybersecurity measures to deal with the situation and so its testing move to shut down the internet access to the entire nation might be its first line of defense to prepare for the worst.
