Hackers broke into a personal e-mail of Arkady Dvorkovich and leaked his correspondence.
Anonymous bloggers have published personal correspondence of Arkadiy Dvorkovich (namely, his incoming e-mails received in June and July) in their “Shaltay Boltay” blog. Some of the senders have confirmed the authenticity of these e-mails – except for Natalya Timakova, who said she has never written Dvorkovich any e-mail from the address specified in leaked correspondence. She said that this address is not hers.
The e-mail hack has stirred up a real commotion in the government. Officials say that in addition to emails hackers have leaked all the attachments – presentations, memos, blueprints etc. But overall the situation is far from disastrous as the classified documents have not been leaked.
Arkadiy Dvorkovich used his personal Gmail account for his official correspondence. Meanwhile, officials are not permitted to use their personal accounts to send official e-mails. But often this rule is being neglected: “You can’t access your work email account from home – that’s why we have to use our personal e-mail accounts. We can’t stay in the office the whole day”, – says one of the government officials.
The employees of vice-president Shuvalov’s front office claim to use internal mail for official correspondence. We’ve been told the same in the secretariats of Dmitry Kozak and Olga Golodets.
A few months ago officials and their subordinates were forbidden to use IPads as they are not protected from cyberattacks. Now they use certified Samsung tablets which meet security standards.
If the police find the perpetrators they may face an 80 000 rubles fine or 1 year of community service. If hackers turn out to be officials using their positions for personal gain they may face up to 4 years of imprisonment.
The experts believe every computer can be compromised; therefore it is necessary to improve security and to take human factor into consideration.
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