A meeting of the heads of the national headquarters for "PROXY operation " was held

Valery Semerikov, the CSTO Deputy Secretary General, chaired a meeting of the heads and plenipotentiary representatives of the heads of the national headquarters for the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s permanent operation to combat crimes in the field of information technology (“PROXY” operation).

On 27 March 2024, a meeting of the heads and plenipotentiary representatives of the heads of the national headquarters for "PROXY" operation was held in Moscow in the building of the CSTO Secretariat, with the participation of delegations of representatives of the national authorized bodies in charge of combating crimes in the field of information technology of the CSTO member states.

The meeting was opened and addressed by Valery Semerikov, the CSTO Deputy Secretary General. "In 2023, despite the difficult situation and the increasing scale of unlawful actions against our states, the units of the authorized and coordinating structures, which are part of the national headquarters of “PROXY” operation, solved complex, non-standard operational tasks, covered the information space, actively fought cyberterrorism and organized crime, drug trafficking, extremism and illegal migration - carried out through information technologies. The set of planned measures has been fulfilled on the whole. Employees of law enforcement agencies, special services and law enforcement bodies, relevant ministries and departments of the Organization's member states directly involved in measures to counter crimes in the sphere of information technologies acted competently and professionally," V.A. Semerikov noted in his speech.

During the meeting, the heads, authorized representatives of the national headquarters for the operation discussed its results for the past year and taking into account the priorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the period of chairmanship in the CSTO, identified priority areas for focusing collective efforts to counter criminal manifestations in the field of information technology in the current year, as well as in the future.

The main priority areas of cooperation in the current year and in the near future have been identified as counteraction:

• the use of the Internet to disseminate information that is politically damaging to national and allied interests, destabilizing the internal political situation and inciting inter-ethnic and religious discord;

• activities of criminal groups with a terrorist and extremist orientation and the dissemination of information, including on the Internet, related to the involvement of nationals of member states in armed conflicts, in terrorist and extremist organizations, in the implementation of threats of pseudo-terrorism and sources of such reports;

• Illicit drug trafficking activities carried out through the use of information and communication technologies and the Internet;

• to commit electronic fraud;

• creation, use and dissemination of malicious programs, as well as detection of software, hardware and software complexes, suppression of illegal activities of international and foreign hacker groups carrying out illegal activities on the Internet, as well as computer attacks on critical information infrastructure.

“PROXY” operation remains an effective instrument of collective cooperation. Joint actions within the framework of the operation to counter attempts to use the sphere of information technology for criminal purposes contribute to strengthening the collective security of the CSTO member states.