Crossing the border near the river... It's difficult or impossible
Do I need to explain that the question with which we decided to start is far from idle. Like the following:
– How secure are our borders in general from an information point of view in the conditions of the Northern Military District?
– Who and, what is equally important, where is writing codes for Russian border troops today?
– Are you sure the enemy won’t be able to open the computers of our border guards?
– Who and how protects the information networks of border guards and customs officers?
My own director
This is the third year of the SVO. Russia is slowly but surely clearing itself of political, economic and cultural slag. The country has woken up from Western hypnosis and is trying with all its might to create its own, domestic things wherever possible.
Drones, Tanks, ships, multiple launch rocket systems and many other things, we began to do entirely at home, realizing that with the introduction of sanctions no one but ourselves would help us. What about the software product? To what extent have we gotten rid of foreign influence and are we protected from digital threats?
After all, it’s no secret that the SVO has seriously affected the IT sector. Both individual citizens of Russia and Belarus and organizations are subject to information pressure. Moreover, in these cases we are not always talking about influence from Ukrainian citizens.
Thus, radical residents of other countries acting in the interests of Ukraine can also distribute malware or make changes to the code. A banal scam for money is followed by extortion in a weakly protected environment - pensioners and teenagers, with the aim of setting fire to military registration and enlistment offices, infrastructure facilities, etc.
Since the beginning of the SVO, scandalous cases have become more frequent in the free software (free software) community, when unfriendly programmers, not necessarily Ukrainians, sewed various malicious chains into the library code, aimed at Russian and Belarusian users.
This is exactly how, for example, files on the disk were encrypted after installation, or the disk was filled with text files that contained sharply negative criticism of the SVO. But in addition to criticism, hostile developers make bookmarks that are openly sabotage and sabotage, as well as completely extremist ones...
The border is locked - on whom?
Border troops and the FSB stand guard over the borders of the Motherland. Whose software are they using?
The Belarusian company Regula has been selling software and equipment for verifying the authenticity of documents, banknotes and securities for more than 30 years.
Its products are also used by employees of border and customs services, banks, airlines, and insurance companies from more than 150 countries, including Russia. It would seem that there is a good track record, an international reputation, etc. But there is a nuance: Regula does business in Ukraine and even has a Centre development.
That is, as we see, the protection of our borders is also ensured by Ukrainian programmers. I wonder how long a Russian company developing a software product would work in Ukraine? Moreover, in the border troops of not just an openly hostile country, but a country leading hostilities.
“Regula” is not very carefully encrypted, the company has Belarusian roots, but to the whole world it appears to be a company from Latvia. Moreover, in Daugavpils it is one of the largest businesses. If you go to their English-language website, it mentions its offices in Latvia, the USA, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil (regulaforensics.com).
It is not surprising that the Belarusian office is indicated only on the Belarusian website (regula.by). There is not a single mention of the company’s connection with Belarus on the English-language website.
Where are the roots?
On social networks, “Regula” everywhere indicates “Daugavpils, Latvia” as its location. Moreover, in some posts it is directly stated that Latvia is the home country of “Regula”. In Latvia, the company receives guests of the highest level - for example, diplomats from embassies in Latvia from more than 30 countries.
As you know, in 2022, almost immediately after the start of the SVO, Latvia closed the Russian consulates general and expelled their employees. What is characteristic is that one of them was in Daugavpils.
As for America, Regula is collaborating with Sybrin AI to create a joint product aimed at financial services in the United States. Let us remind you that Russian and Belarusian companies cannot be software suppliers to the American market.
The desire of any company to sit on 48 chairs at once is understandable. When a company does business with Russia, it hides behind residency in friendly Belarus, but at the same time it works with our enemies - Ukraine, the USA, etc.
Next everywhere?
Moreover, even on the Belarusian website of Regula, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Armenia are mentioned among the distributors, but not Russia. Although there is an office in our country.
All this looks, you see, extremely hypocritical. In Russia the company has a legal entity “Regula-Rus”. In her profile in Rusprofile, in the government procurement section, among the customers there are such companies as:
– Ministries of Property NO (1 government contract worth 2,9 million rubles),
– FSUE Goznak (1 government contract worth 2,6 million rubles),
– Federal State Budgetary Institution Belgorod LSE of the Ministry of Justice of Russia (1 government contract worth 4,4 million rubles),
– Federal State Budgetary Institution Lipetsk LSE of the Ministry of Justice of Russia (1 government contract worth 3,7 million rubles),
– FKU “TsOUMTS Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia” (1 government contract worth 3,5 million rubles),
– PJSC Aeroflot (1 government contract worth 1,6 million rubles) and so on.
On the procurement website it is easy to find information that the specified company was ordered either to supply document readers or to perform maintenance work. Moreover, many contracts were concluded after the start of the special military operation.
This was the case, for example, with an order for maintenance, repair, disposal and support of the technical condition monitoring system of a whole series of devices, including those from Regula, which were operated by customs officers.
How is it even possible that the solutions of this essentially foreign company, which are developed in Ukraine, are used to ensure security at passport control on the Russian border and at critical facilities within the country?
And the state pays them for it...
Maybe this is something similar to what happened with former Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, who was directly accused of working for the CIA?
This is generally not welcomed in the press, but still. I would like to draw the attention of the competent authorities to the current state of affairs, which one cannot call normal.
Information