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13 March 2019, 12:10

Why Belarus needs information security concept: views of experts and authors

At an expanded meeting on 12 March Belarus' Security Council considered the draft of the country's information security concept which was developed on the instruction of President Alexander Lukashenko. It is expected that once finalized, it will be adopted in the near future. The authors of the concept and experts opine on why the country needs this document and what its features are.

Aleksei Bankovsky: The concept is the symbiosis of different views and approaches

According to the head of the information and analysis department at the State Secretariat of the Security Council Aleksei Bankovsky, the draft information security concept was in the works for a long ago: experts and scholars, representatives of government bodies have been working on it for a few years.

“The concept relies on the analytical studies conducted by the State Secretariat. We have conducted around twenty of them across various aspects of information security. We studied the information and psychological influence, legal regulation of internet security, various aspects related to crime in information space,” Aleksei Bankovsky said.

The main provisions of the document were discussed at international conferences and meetings, including in the CIS and CSTO. All in all, there were about 30 such events. “The basic provisions of the concept were published in leading scientific journals. There were dozens of publications. This made it possible to develop a more complete, detailed document to incorporate not only the views of government bodies but also those pf the expert community, our leading scholars,” Aleksei Bankovsky said.

He noted that the concept has embraced different views and approaches to information security, which include not only conceptual views but also specific activities of all stakeholders: citizens, government bodies and organizations, representatives of the business community.

When working on the document its authors studied the experience of other countries but the concept is in fact a national product. “It has absorbed all the achievements in this field and of course, specifics of our country. The concept will provide the basis for more effective enforcement of the rights of all subjects who are part of information relations. This is the main objective of the information security concept. It is meant to help further improve the national legislation, take it a step further and move forward strengthening our national legal system,” he said.

Alexander Karlyukevich: National media content closely linked with the information security concept

Belarus Information Minister Alexander Karlyukevich noted that the information security concept sets quite a wide framework for other projects related to information sector, interrelations between society and mass media, the state and mass media. “This way or another many positions of the concept are directly related to the economy, to the things that define the vital functions of the country and society,” the minister said.

For example, the concept talks about the role of telecommunications, digitalization for economic development, investment. The work of mass media in new formats, including in social networks, is also important.

Alexander Karlyukevich expressed confidence that there are enough opportunities today for working in the information sector, evaluating different information resources. There is a strong legislative framework. “The Information Ministry has built a clear-cut system to make these assessments and to take appropriate measures,” the minister said.

He noted that, for example, last year access was limited to dozens of websites in connection with violations of the law. “While making these decisions, we rely on the information and analytical work of the entire government system,” Alexander Karlyukevich.

The minister also spoke about the presence and development of national content in internet and TV media. “Today this issue is very closely linked to the information security concept. Because the national content helps protect our own interests,” he said.

Alexander Ivanovsky: Belarus lies in-between countries engaged in information warfare

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Doctor of Engineering Science, Professor and one of the authors of the concept Alexander Ivanovsky believes that the information policy should be aimed at protecting the interests of citizens, society and the state.

He believes that it is important to efficiently determine the balance between the interests of different groups in the Belarusian society. The concept is expected to contribute to this. “Belarus has its own specifics and they have an impact on the way we see things. We are in-between a number of states who are, in fact, engaged in information warfare, promoting different pictures of the world,” the expert said.

Alexander Ivanovsky noted that the work on the concept has been in progress for a few years. Several international conferences had been held to discuss different aspects. “In a sense we are a little late with this document. Both our close neighbors and distant neighbors have already worked these issues out,” he added.

One of the key points of the document is the information sovereignty: protection of citizens, organizations and their rights in the territory of Belarus. In addition, much attention is paid to efforts to maintain the country's? stability.

The concept is the document that creates a conceptually broad vision of a situation in the face of rapidly changing scenarios and sets out a framework for improving legal regulation. The state should be ready for different situations. The concept creates the prerequisites for us to make intelligent and forward-thinking decisions with regard to legislative changes. It serves as a benchmark for bylaws and nationwide legislation,” the expert said.

Oleg Makarov: We are ready to protect national interests in information space. We do not threaten national interests of other states

Director of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies Oleg Makarov noted that the information security concept would be finalized within a week. After adoption, the document will be made available to the public. “We plan to translate the document and distribute it around the world, as it conveys a clear position of Belarus on information security. We would like this signal to be heard abroad,” he explained.

According to Oleg Makarov, the concept reflects the government's position on all aspects of the information policy. “This is not only the information space, but also the protection of information resources, the rights of citizens, personal data, secrets, information infrastructure, crime prevention, and so on. This document says that we are determined to enforce Belarus' laws in the area of our interests,” the director said.

For the first time the document declares the information sovereignty of Belarus. The concept emphasizes that the country refuses to use information technology to the detriment of other states, and intends to ensure its own security. “We are ready to ensure the security of our national interests in the field of information, and we do not infringe upon others' national interests. This is in sync with the entire set of policies pursued by Belarus,” said Oleg Makarov.

Belarus advocates resolving information conflicts through legal instruments, the concept says. "We would like to streamline rules in mass media space and make them more intelligible and legally binding to protect the interests of citizens and the state," he said.

According to Oleg Makarov, the information security was discussed at the recent meeting of the Security Council for a reason. This is one of the crucially important areas. “All neighboring countries have such doctrinal documents. We need to follow this path in order to interact with them and not to be considered a backward state,” the director added.

The doctrine also aims to combat fake news. “We believe that it is necessary to spread certain practices, standards of responsible behavior in mass media space since deliberate disinformation harms both citizens and the state. We believe that an effective way to fight this is to fill the information space with responsible content so that people rely on news sources they trust. We are thinking over the liability for improper activity in the area,” Oleg Makarov said.

Igor Marzalyuk: Any country needs a clear historical policy to defend and promote national interests

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It is important that the information security concept contains a chapter on traditional values, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Education, Culture and Science of the House of Representatives Igor Marzalyuk said. A part of these values are related to culture and national identity. “For the first time, the Belarusian state is developing and promoting the Belarusian historical policy, defines the Belarusian national historical concept, which reflects the main stages of the country's development in a balanced and objective way,” the MP said.

According to him, such initiative is a pan-European trend. Germany and Poland, for example, are working on their historical policy. The have developed a so-called memory law. “A classical example of the German legislation: the country has enacted laws criminalizing both the denial of the Holocaust and the promotion of Nazi ideology,” said Igor Marzalyuk.

“A historical fact is a fragment of reality. If you are engaged in insinuations, distortion of reality, then you should be held responsible by law for slander, misinformation, and incitement of racial and national hatred. It is no secret that there are TV channels, internet blogs that attempt to change a certain paradigm of the historical and cultural identity of our country, turn traitors into heroes and vice versa,” the MP said. According to Igor Marzalyuk, any country needs a clear historical policy to defend and promote its interests.

“It is not a secret that wars of historical memory are raging around us. In these wars, our neighbors demonstrate certain images that affect our past and, in a number of the most radical cases, question the existence of the Belarusian nation and the territorial integrity of our state. Belarus' new concept explains the principles of the country's historical policy for the first time,” Igor Marzalyuk said.

Yevgeny Liplyanin: Proposed initiatives rely on cutting-edge technologies

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Specialist of the Operations and Analysis Center under the President of Belarus Yevgeny Liplyanin emphasized that the concept introduces the term “cybersecurity”. Before that the focus was on information security. The new term is close to the European approaches in this field. “Now it will be much easier to interact because when there is any misunderstanding in the conceptual framework it is always difficult to do a dialogue,” the expert remarked.

He said that certain initiatives relying on globally efficient cutting-edge technologies have been put forward. For example, these include a system for monitoring information security which implies the establishment of a national center of information security and specialized institutional centers or the so-called security operations centers (SOCs).

Yevgeny Liplyanin explained that such centers already exist in the world, and that Belarus is thoroughly studying the experience in order to avoid mistakes which had been made as these systems were built abroad. Experts also assess other aspects in order to make a balanced and effective decision.

“We need many centers of the kind. Experts can produce a high-quality assessment of the information submitted to such centers only at the local level. They will decide if a certain incident in information security is an ordinary event or requires particular attention. The more specialized centers we have, the better we will be able to address security issues. The national center will aggregate information to provide a better assessment of the information security environment in the country. It means that not all the information will be brought to the center. Its experts will focus on particular incidents for the development of strategic solutions,” the representative of the Operations and Analysis Center said.

He also remarked that the process to create cloud services in information security has been initiated to support the public sector and the business community. In this case a competent agency may be fully responsible for information security. It will address the entire range of related tasks.

“A big change in this field is coming (and these issues are specified in the information security concept). Most laws on technical protection of information were passed in Belarus in 2015. The documents concerning key facilities for information support were adopted in 2011. The time has come to modernize the system. In order to fulfill the president's current instruction we have already prepared a draft legal act to upgrade the existing system of information security in the country,” Yevgeny Liplyanin said.

In his words, plans have been made to adopt a decree concerning the improvement of the information security system. The document was prepared, went through the harmonization procedure, and will be submitted for approval in the near future.

BelTA reported earlier that all the agencies concerned and the country's most competent specialists had taken part in this effort. Specialists from nearly 20 government agencies and organizations, representatives of leading mass media, members of the parliament, scholars and experts had contributed to the document.

The document was worked out taking into account Belarus' geopolitical interests, its place and role in the modern world. The document reflects modern challenges and threats, which are evolving in the information sphere and pose danger to the constitutional foundation and operation of states such as manipulation of the collective consciousness, discrediting of ideals and values, erosion of national sovereignty, instability of information infrastructure, etc.

The document stipulates information sovereignty as an inalienable and exclusive supreme right of the state to independently determine rules of ownership, usage, and management of national information resources, to pursue an independent foreign and domestic state information policy, to shape the national information infrastructure, and ensure information security. It is supposed to be achieved among other things by pursuing the policy of information neutrality, which provides for recognition of universally acknowledged and accepted rights of any state in this sphere and rules out interference with the information sphere of other countries.

It is the first time the draft concept has stipulated the readiness of the state to incessantly detect risks, challenges, and threats in the information sphere and respond to them. The document introduces the term “cybersecurity”.

Apart from effective work of mass media the draft concept underlines the importance of active presence of the state in the Internet. In addition to official websites of government agencies the document mentions blogs, instant messaging apps, and social networks

Photos by Maksim Guchek

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