I WOULD like to draw the kind attention of all to foreign news agencies’ articles republished in local media that defame the Russian Federation, such as a recent report implying that Russia provides safe harbour for ransomware. I would like to make two comments. Firstly, ICT-related crimes are a common challenge for the whole world, and Russia is one of the biggest victims: our economy lost more than US$33bil (RM136bil) in 2019 because of hackers’ activities, and the still uncalculated losses in 2020 are expected to be much higher. Secondly, the huge batch of official documents revealed some years ago by Wikileaks regarding government-backed cyberattacks were not about Russia.