Over 1,000 criminal cases filed in CIS in 2013 on information security charges

Over 1,000 criminal cases involving information security were filed in the CIS states in 2013, BelTA learned from Chairman of the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus Valery Vakulchik at the session of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus on 24 June.

Apart from that, thanks to cooperation of special services in the CIS as many as 102 Internet resources containing manifestly unlawful information were detected in 2013.

According to Valery Vakulchik, virtually every month the KGB detects correspondence between people, who share information about how to make explosive devices on the Internet. “Some make these devices for vandalistic purposes while some do it out of curiosity,” said the official. He made it clear that such actions can be a threat to the “demolition wannabes” and to the entire society.

The KGB chief also said that during the ice hockey world championship 2014 special services intercepted Internet messages from an anonymous person to another one saying that “a jar of ammonite has been prepared and setting it off is the only thing left to do”. Thanks to cooperation with colleagues from Russia the KGB determined that one of the communicants was in Saint Petersburg while the other one was in Belarus. In the end it turned out to be a joke. “But we learned it only afterwards. We would not have been able to get to the bottom of it on our own,” remarked the KGB chief.

When asked to clarify, Valery Vakulchik explained: “If they [Internet users] send private messages to each other, as a matter of principle, they are not subject to criminal or administrative prosecution. If a person distributes information relating to the threat of a terrorist attack, then they are. But only if the information is available to the general public”.