The State Duma approved a bill on the confiscation of the property of cybercriminals

On February 9, the State Duma deputies adopted amendments to the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on confiscation of property, allowing the seizure of the property of cybercriminals. The text of the draft is published on the portal of the lower house of Parliament.

The bill was submitted to the State Duma in November 2022. According to the initiative, the list of crimes for which the confiscation of property obtained as a result of illegal activities is envisaged should be expanded. It is proposed to seize property obtained as a result of illegal access to computer information, creation, use and distribution of malicious programs, violation of operating rules, storage, processing or transmission of computer information, as well as illegal impact on the critical IT infrastructure of the country.

As the head of the Duma committee on security and anti-corruption and one of the authors of the amendments, Vasily Piskarev, pointed out, episodes of fraud in the credit and financial sphere have recently become more frequent, when attackers "in cunning ways" or with the help of pirated programs lure out bank card data and deprive victims of savings or make loans for them. Therefore, the adoption of amendments will help to "restore justice" and will make it possible to direct the funds of cybercriminals to compensate victims.