Estonian government institutions will begin to restrict the acceptance of emails sent from Russian servers starting August 31. Letters from addresses in the ‘ru’ domain will be directed to quarantine for additional verification, announced Estonia's Minister of Justice and Digital Technologies Liisa Pakosta.
The reason for this decision is the increase in the number of letters containing real cyber threats that have been coming from Russian servers since 2022.
"Email addresses with the .ru domain represent an increased cyber risk. There is a serious danger that they are being used to hack personal databases," explained Pakosta.
According to the minister, the quarantine mechanism is already in place in government institutions and is applied to suspicious letters based on other criteria. Now, the origin from Russian servers will be added to these criteria.
"Letters from ‘ru’ addresses will no longer go directly to the mailboxes of Estonian civil servants. They will go into quarantine, and each official will be able to open them from there according to the rules of their institution," Pakosta clarified, adding that responding to such a letter will take more time than to a letter from a more secure server.
The minister recommended that local governments follow the state's example but left the final decision to them. Everyone using an address in the ‘ru’ domain to communicate with Estonian government institutions is advised to replace it with another one that is not controlled by Russian authorities as soon as possible.
Pakosta timed her decision to the anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia, which is celebrated on August 31.
Leave a comment