A simulated digital ruble system was hacked during Standoff, Russia's cyber battle after white hackers found basic security failures in a banking setup built to mimic the architecture Russia is preparing to roll out in the real world, The Coinformer has learned.
Instead, it happened inside a sandbox, where organizers modeled a virtual state with banks, energy companies, factories and other critical infrastructure.
But the banking scenario was designed around the real digital ruble, the Bank of Russia's central bank digital currency, and included a central bank platform, intermediary banks and ISO 20022 messaging, the global financial messaging standard used by banks.
New hacks, old mistakes
DreamTeam, which included cybersecurity specialists from Sovcombank Technologies, the tech arm of sanctioned Russian lender Sovcombank, won Standoff for the eighth time.
The digital ruble scenario was one of the main new features in the banking sector. According to Pavel Chernyshev, head of security analysis at Sovcombank and DreamTeam's banking-sector subcaptain, the setup gave participants a rare chance to test a technology that hasn't yet entered broader use.
Pavel Chernyshev
- Russian banks will be required to offer customers the ability to make digital ruble payments from Sept. 1 after the central bank pushed the rollout back by more than a year.
- Announced in October 2020, the digital ruble is Russia's central bank digital currency, a third form of the national currency alongside cash and bank-account rubles, with all three meant to be equal one-to-one.
- It's not a blockchain-based token as there's a single issuer, the Bank of Russia, and all accounts and transactions sit on the central bank's own platform, while commercial banks only provide customer access through their apps.