More than 28 million rubles have lured cyber criminals from Belarusians this year

Every third crime in Belarus is committed in cyberspace. Against this background, the security of information in general and personal data in particular acquires special relevance. Belarusian experience in data protection and new security standards were discussed at a press conference at the National Press Center.

Started with statistics. Every third crime in Belarus is cyber-targeted. And that number is only growing. Over the current year, the number of crimes in this area increased by 10 percent with a decrease in the total number of crimes in the country. If we talk about specific amounts, only in 2026 more than 28 million Belarusian rubles were lured from our citizens in various ways.

Such phenomena must be countered, and prevention remains the best protection against cybercrime, says Andrei Gaev, director of the National Center for Personal Data Protection:

- This year, thanks to preventive activities and explanatory work, it was possible to prevent the withdrawal of almost 10 million rubles to accounts beyond the control of our citizens.

The scope of the problems associated with the use and protection of data is so great that more than 150 countries have already adopted relevant legislation and established authorized structures to solve problems in this area. And Belarus is no exception. On November 15, 2021, the Law “On Personal Data Protection” came into force in our country and the National Center for Personal Data Protection was created.

Andrey Gaev described what has been done over the past five years:

- The practice of applying the Law “On Personal Data Protection” and its linkage with industry legislation continues to be improved. Over the past five years, more than 850 regulatory legal acts have undergone corresponding changes. Somewhere removed excessive storage time information, somewhere cleared the legal field from collecting unnecessary documents. Issues of organization and functioning of information resources, exchange of information between them are being resolved.

Belarusians’ understanding of personal data has grown. This is confirmed by the data of a sociological study conducted this year. About 80 percent of citizens understand that personal data is important and must be protected.

It is noteworthy that despite the development of forms and methods of cybercrime, the number of major incidents remains small. And even slightly reduced compared to the period five years ago, said Andrey Gaev:

- No one in the world has come up with a technology that would completely protect a specific resource. Nevertheless, organizations have become more serious about protecting their information loop. With the incidents themselves, the situation has also changed. Two years ago, it was much easier to detect a data breach. Today, many things that are positioned by attackers as an incident are actually compiled information from previously stolen information and modified with the help of artificial intelligence, and sometimes such statements are completely fake.

Since the beginning of 2026, the National Center for Personal Data Protection has received 47 notifications about various types of information security incidents related to personal data. Most of them are associated with errors of specific employees and are not related to the technical component of information contours protection.

In just five years, the center received about 150 such notifications. Only 20 per cent of them are leaks, which indicates the effectiveness of the measures taken by organizations to protect their information resources. The reasons for most of the leaks were the use of uncertified software, remote work of employees through unprotected communication channels, the use of personal computers infected with viruses by employees. This year, another one appeared in the top causes of data leakage – uploading significant data sets to ChatGPT and similar services running on AI technologies.

Andrey Gaev also shared his vision of the reality of the threat of artificial intelligence to humanity. According to him, the decision on key issues should be made by a person. This must be enshrined at the legislative level.

gorbatenko@sb.by