Sber held technological exercises with simulation of US sanctions

This was reported by sources of the publication in the government and in the computer market. Sberbank itself and other large banks did not answer questions about the exercises. Software and hardware vendors do not have information or do not respond to inquiries. The Ministry of Digital Development believes that testing the stability of the IT infrastructure and assessing risks is “standard practice”.

The interlocutor of the publication said that the government is working on scenarios for limiting the supply of microelectronics and disconnecting from the support of foreign software. On January 19, Reuters reported a warning from the United States of chipmakers about a possible ban on the supply of electronics to Russia in the event of an invasion of Ukraine.

One of the agency's informants spoke about Sberbank's intention to make a large-scale purchase of servers and a data storage system.

According to the interviewed experts of industry associations, there is an urgent need to speed up the import substitution of computer equipment and software.

“In connection with the aggravation of the foreign policy situation, we are no longer just talking about the need for import substitution, but about how much time remains for this”, - commented Renat Lashin, executive director of the ARPP “Domestic Soft”.

He believes that large enterprises need to conduct a series of exercises to test the stability of their IT infrastructure, the purpose of which will be to find bottlenecks and develop scenarios for rapid response. Based on this, it is necessary to create backup mechanisms based on domestic software and electronic components.

Irina Zinovkina, Consulting Director of InfoWatch Group, said that there are many domestic analogues of foreign software, but a sharp transition of unprepared enterprises will become problematic. One of the problems she called the transfer of databases, which may affect business processes.

According to Aleksey Smirnov, the head of the board of directors of Basalt SPO, large software developers and computer equipment manufacturers in Russia have a lot of customers, and they do not want to lose a large market. Such companies are able to resist sanctions.

In mid-January, it was reported that US sanctions for the first time could affect Russian President Vladimir Putin and major domestic companies, including Sberbank.