Russia’s Information Security Industry Expands International Footprint

Executive Summary:

• Russian information security companies are expanding their operations in Russia’s near abroad despite facing limitations caused by Western sanctions, as other states increasingly view internet freedom as a threat to their sovereignty. 
• Russian contractors are also working alongside the Kremlin to draw on Iran’s experience with internet censorship and surveillance as Russia develops its own “sovereign internet” project. 
• Countries that lack the budget for more expensive information security solutions from Western countries may turn to Russia’s domestic solutions, solidifying Russia’s influence over their information spaces.

Russia’s annual Information Security Forum took place in early February 2025. Participants included representatives from Russian security services, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and leading Russian information security contractors, including Positive Technologies (Infoforum 2025, accessed March 26). The forum highlighted the growing ties between the Russian state and the country’s information security industry, as well as increased international cooperation in this sector. The forum underscored the Kremlin’s continued desire for a sovereign internet that would be as independent as possible from Western technologies as well as the interest of other authoritarian states in the Kremlin’s digital sovereignty project.

The United States sanctioned Positive Technologies in April 2021 in connection with its alleged collaboration with Russian intelligence services in malicious attacks against the United States (U.S. Treasury Department, April 15, 2021). The sanctions appear to have had little effect, however, as the company’s operations have continued to expand. The company is listed on the Moscow Stock Exchange, and it has recently acquired technologies previously owned by the Russian cybersecurity company “Group IB,” whose founder and former CEO, Ilya Sachkov, was arrested and charged with treason in July 2023 (ServerNews, February 17).  The company aims to capture a 20 percent market share in Russia’s information security market, which is projected to reach a value of 700 billion rubles ($8.2 billion) by 2028 (PTSecurity, February 20).

One of the plenary presentations at the Information Security Forum was delivered by Major General Aleksandr Neverovskii, the Vice Secretary of Belarus’s National Security Council. He emphasized that Russia and Belarus were pursuing the creation of a unified information security space across the two countries (Infoforum 2025, accessed March 26). Russian information security firms have made their own business deals to unify the two markets. Positive Technologies acquired a stake in the Belarusian firm “Virusblokada,” an antivirus company, as part of plans to introduce such service offerings by the end of 2025 (Habr, February 24). Other Russian contractors, such as Yadro, the company developing the Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology used by the Russian state for internet surveillance, tapped into Belarus’s sizable information technology (IT) sector by opening offices in Minsk in 2023 (CNews, March 17, 2023).

Belarus’s approach to the internet has increasingly mirrored the Kremlin’s policies. Belarus’s presidential elections in January were marked by Belarusian providers blocking international access to the country’s internet infrastructure and interruptions to virtual private network (VPN) services (URA, January 25). Marat Markov, the Belarusian Minister of Communications, subsequently accused Google of election interference and stated that Minsk is currently developing a legal framework for the creation of a Communications Authority modeled on Russia’s Communications Authority (RosKomNadZor) (NashaNiva, January 28).

As internet freedom in the region declines, Positive Technologies’ success in Russia is increasingly mirrored across Eurasia. The company established an office presence in Kazakhstan in 2018 and has continued to expand its operations, including obtaining an official license to provide services to the Kazakh state shortly after opening its offices (Nur.kz, April 9, 2024). Both Kazakhstan and Russia have pursued similar digital sovereignty policies, including attempting to introduce national security certificates for internet browsing to replace Western technologies (OpenNET.ru, December 6, 2020; see EDM, February 15, 2024).

Positive Technologies actively supports the development of Eurasia’s information security sector by sponsoring industry conferences, training at universities, and collaborating with industry organizations. In Uzbekistan, the firm sponsored “Positive Tech Day,” a conference that brought together the country’s IT industry and government regulators (PTSecurity, April 3, 2024). The company is also working with universities in Uzbekistan to offer information security training programs (Gazeta.ru, September 27, 2024). Similar training is also sponsored by the firm in Kyrgyzstan (Knews.kg, February 28, 2024)

Russian information security contractors are also expanding their operations beyond post-Soviet Eurasia. An official bilateral working group began meeting in June 2023 in Tehran, which included the Russian Ministry of Digital Technology, leading Russian telecommunications companies, and prominent vendors, including Positive Technologies (Kommersant, July 7, 2023). Iran has more experience integrating internet censorship technologies, as the internet expanded in the Islamic Republic during the 1990s and 2000s, compared to Russia, which is now attempting to impose a censorship regime retroactively (see EDM, February 15, November 25, 2024).

Iranian representatives already offered to collaborate with Russia on developing sovereign network technologies to isolate Russia from the global internet at a conference in Siberia in the summer of 2023. The delegation highlighted their experience in developing electronic messaging systems and e-government services while under heavy sanctions, as Russia has been experiencing since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (Ura.news, June 9, 2023). These meetings bore fruit for Positive Technologies, as the company received authorization to operate in Iran in July 2024, allowing it to work with Tehran’s Presidential Strategic Management Center (MehrNews, July 27, 2024). The company subsequently produced extensive reports on the country’s cyber risk landscape, along with recommendations for Iran’s private sector (Positive Technologies, October 25, 2024).

Positive Technologies has mentioned in interviews that it is actively seeking markets in other BRICS [1] countries. It seeks to use Russia’s experience in wartime conditions as an example for other countries on how to achieve “technological sovereignty.” The company is now developing Spanish-language content for the Latin America market (CNews, September 19, 2022). Organizations in BRICS countries that lack the budget for more expensive information security solutions from Western countries may turn to Russia’s domestic solutions, further solidifying Russia’s influence.

Russia’s expanding international footprint represents both a source of revenue for the Russian economy and a desire to compete with Western information security technologies. As Russia continues to become increasingly isolated on the international stage, it is continuing to innovate and deepen its collaboration with other authoritarian states in the fields of information security and electronic surveillance. If Russia continues to have success in developing its own sovereign internet technologies through collaboration with Iran and China, other nascent authoritarian states will likely see Russia as a model for how to decouple from an internet which has hitherto been defined by an extraordinary amount of information freedom.

Note:

[1] A loose political-economic grouping initially comprising Brazil, Russia, India, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and South Africa, which has since expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.