Information Security as Part of National Security Comes to the Fore

Information security as part of the national security is taking a leading position. Such an opinion was expressed at the press conference in Minsk by Chairman of the Union State Parliamentary Assembly Commitee for Security, Defence and Crime Control Anatoly Vankovich.

Information security as part of the national security is taking a leading position. Such an opinion was expressed at the press conference in Minsk by Chairman of the Union State Parliamentary Assembly Commitee for Security, Defence and Crime Control Anatoly Vankovich.

The Chairman of the Committee said that “a number of truly significant events have taken place recently. It is an information forum (ref. www.soyuz.by – seminar in Grodno) which considered the issues of information security and information space of the Union State. Within the framework of this forum there was held the 24^th meeting of the standing seminar under the Parliamentary Assembly “Security of Information Space of the Union State”.

“At present we don’t attach great importance to information-related threats: military-political, criminal and terrorist ones. But they constantly exert influence on every one of us, our state, and every citizen. According to various sources, 1.5 million people in the world suffer from information attacks. It is worse than weapons of mass destruction,” said the parliamentarian.

Anatoly Vankovich said that “the forum was attended by the deputy corps, representatives of the Union State Standing Committee and scientists-practitioners who are engaged in this field of activity. Every year we hold a conference on integrated information security and check what must be done to protect an individual and our state from the negative influence”.

The Chairman of the Committee believes that “an example of such an impact can be Wikileaks, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. They show that these attacks continue. At the seminar we examined the issues of interaction with the media and Internet security. We didn’t consider some kind of restrictive measures, because every citizen has the right to get information, but they should know what kind of information it is, and what its consequences are. Our task is to prevent the consequences that could harm our citizens and the State,” he stressed.

“We also considered the issues of information-systems security and joint personnel training. Information security, if we take the whole national security, is coming to the fore now,” summed up Anatoly Vankovich.