To prevent crises, the United States and Russia recognize the need for secure and reliable lines of communication to make formal inquiries about cybersecurity incidents of national concern. For this reason, the United States and the Russian Federation decided in 2013 to use the longstanding Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NRRC) links established in 1987 between the United States and the former Soviet Union to build confidence between our two nations through information exchange, employing their around-the-clock staffing at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., and the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. As part of the expanded NRRC role in bilateral and multilateral security and confidence building arrangements, this new use of the system allows us to quickly and reliably make inquiries of one another’s competent authorities to reduce the possibility of misperception and escalation from ICT security incidents. This kind of exchange helps promote transparency and decrease the risks of instability and conflict in cyberspace between the United States and the Russian Federation.

For more information, please see the 2013 White House Fact Sheet on U.S.-Russian Cooperation on Information and Communications Technology Security