Russia's Ministry of Digital Development has approved recommendations for protecting data centers against drones and other aerial threats. The document proposes dividing facilities into three categories, strengthening physical defenses, providing data redundancy and coordinating operators' security measures with government agencies.
The details were reported on October 25 by Kommersant, which examined the new recommendations for protecting digital infrastructure.
The first category, K1, covers strategically important data centers whose destruction or disruption could interfere with essential government functions for at least one hour.
The second, K2, includes facilities supporting economically or socially important systems at the regional or industry level. The criterion is the risk of disrupting such functions for at least four hours.
The third category, K3, covers corporate data centers whose damage could cause substantial losses to individual organizations without nationwide consequences.
The proposed measures include reinforcing buildings and equipment rooms, protecting technical systems from aerial attacks, establishing backup capacity and duplicating critical data.
For strategic facilities, the recommendations consider placing some infrastructure components underground or inside specially reinforced structures.
The document also calls for data center operators to coordinate with security agencies and other authorities responsible for protecting critical infrastructure.
The ministry confirmed that it had circulated the recommendations to industry participants.
The measures were developed amid growing concerns about drone attacks against Russia's digital, industrial and energy infrastructure.
Industry representatives believe some of the proposals could improve protection, but warn of additional costs. They estimate that service prices could rise by around 10%, excluding inflation.
That figure is an industry forecast, not an approved tariff increase.
The document demonstrates how aerial threats are increasingly shaping the planning of Russian digital infrastructure. The recommendations should not, however, automatically be treated as new legally binding regulations for every data center operator.