Senator Sheikin urged Russians to urgently change passwords due to personal data leaks

Artem Sheikin, Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy under the Federation Council, called on the Russians to “urgently” change and pick up different passwords for a number of services. He justified this need with a large amount of personal data flowing into the network.

“There is a strong possibility that passwords as a result of leaks can be in the public domain and used by attackers who can use a brute-force method to hack into other accounts and services using the same login and password,” Mr. Sheikin said. “RIA News”.

According to him, companies are “frivolous” about the safety of users’ personal data, since the law on turnover penalties for leaks has not yet been passed. He received a recommendation to choose different passwords for his services and change them regularly from a Kaspersky Lab expert.

By data Roskomnadzor as of mid-June, since the beginning of 2023, there have been about 75 personal data leaks. In total, about 200 million records about Russians got on the Internet. For all of 2022, approximately 600 million records leaked. A bill on turnover fines for companies for leaking personal data has been under discussion since the spring of 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to submit a relevant draft law by July 1. Artem Sheikin in mid-June saidthat the Ministry of Digital Development has prepared a bill: the fine for the first violation will be from 5 million to 10 million rubles, for the second – up to 3% of the turnover. For repeated leaks, the fine for companies will range from 0.1% to 3% of the company’s turnover over the past year.

Lusine Balasyan