Estonian state institutions will begin restricting the reception of emails sent from Russian servers starting August 31. Messages from .ru domain addresses will not go directly to officials' inboxes but will be quarantined for additional verification. This was announced by the Estonian Minister of Justice and Digital Technologies, Liisa Pakosta, ERR reports.
Estonia cites an increase in the number of emails with real cyber threats originating from Russian servers since 2022 as the reason for the decision. According to Pakosta, such messages are often used for phishing and distributing malicious software.
Email addresses with the .ru domain represent an increased cyber risk. There is a serious danger that they are being used to hack personal databases.
The quarantine mechanism is already applied in Estonian state institutions to suspicious emails based on other criteria. Now, the origin from Russian servers will be a separate factor. Officials will be able to open such messages from quarantine in accordance with their institutions' rules, but responding to them may take longer.
Emails from .ru addresses will no longer go directly to the inboxes of Estonian civil servants. They will go into quarantine, and each official will be able to open them from there in accordance with their institution's rules.
Pakosta also recommended that local governments follow the example of state bodies, but left the final decision to them. Those who use a .ru domain address for correspondence with Estonian state institutions are advised to replace it as soon as possible with another one not controlled by Russian agencies. The decision was timed to August 31 – the anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia.