Russia might restrict operations of Amazon cloud platform, other web hosting providers, over failure to comply with law - telecoms watchdog

MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - Russia might restrict the operations of some foreign companies providing web hosting services, including Amazon's cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), as well as GoDaddy, DigitalOcean, Hetzner Online, and some others, over their failure to comply with Russian law, the Russian telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor said.

"A number of foreign companies, such as Amazon Web Services Inc., GoDaddy.com LLC, DigitalOcean LLC, Hetzner Online GmbH, HostGator.com LLC, Kamatera Inc., Ionos Inc., and Network Solutions LLC, have failed to comply with the requirements [set for web hosting providers], while continuing to provide web hosting services to Russian organizations," Roskomnadzor said in a statement.

"Considering risks that resources hosted by said companies are exposed to, the operations of these web hosting providers could be restricted on Russian territory, in which case they would be unable to provide web hosting services to Russian organizations," it said.

Considering this, Roskomnadzor recommended that "websites be located on resources of organizations properly abiding by Russian law and included in the register of web hosting providers" available on Roskomnadzor's website, it said.

"Organizations that locate their resources on facilities of foreign web hosting providers might experience a number of serious threats," it said.

"Foreign providers may use resources hosted on their platforms to circumvent blocks, for instance, to spread prohibited content. This increases the likelihood of a website's blocking in Russia. In addition, Roskomnadzor cannot protect websites hosted by foreign providers from DDoS attacks and other threats. This makes resources vulnerable to cybercriminals who can disable a website, steal data, or commit other crimes," it said.

Apart from that, "foreign web hosting providers may sever cooperation with the owner of a resource at any moment, for instance, for political reasons or in line with the company's internal decisions, thus making a website inaccessible to users," Roskomnadzor said.

"Information stored on servers of foreign providers is not always protected from unsanctioned access. This puts confidentiality of users' data and business security at risk, as an information leak may lead to financial and reputational losses," it said.

Federal Law No. 406-FZ enacted to protect the owners of resources from such threats sets certain requirements to be met by companies providing web hosting services, including the obligations to ensure the security of information in their infrastructure, interact with the Center for Monitoring and Control of the Public Communications Network to counter DDoS attacks, participate in exercises to ensure sustainable operations of the Russian segment of the Internet, and submit applications for being included in the register of web hosting providers, it said.

In April, Roskomnadzor restricted access to the websites of a number of web hosting providers, including AWS, GoDaddy, Kamatera, HostGator, Network Solutions, and DigitalOcean, for failing to comply with the so-called grounding law obliging these companies to open a representative office in Russia.

A web hosting provider is an organization providing disk space and server capacity for websites.