Russia expands grounds for revoking website security certificates — small firms face new costs

Russia's Ministry of Digital Development has published a draft decree that broadens the list of grounds for revoking security certificates from websites and other online resources. According to industry experts cited by Telesputnik, the change is likely to push up costs for small businesses, as site owners will more frequently turn to cybersecurity and consulting services.

The new grounds include a court ruling that has taken effect and found the information in a certificate to be false, notification that the site owner has lost their identification and authentication key, duplication of a key, and the shutdown of the National Certification Center.

Experts say that conscientious website owners should not face serious problems from the amendments. However, demand is expected to grow for secure key storage, certificate inventory management, and clear procedures for changing administrators and contractors. Yevgeny Pivovarov, head of the IT department at MONS, said the move represents a real burden for small businesses: a sudden certificate revocation would make a site unavailable until it is reissued.

"The sensitive point here is not the grounds themselves but the transparency of their application: the market needs to understand how the mechanism will work in practice," he added.

For small companies that often rely on a single certificate and lack dedicated security staff, the risk of an abrupt revocation is especially high. Even a temporary outage can mean lost revenue and damage to customer trust. The draft decree does not specify a transition period, and experts stress that the absence of clear procedural guidelines could make the process unpredictable. Some market participants also point out that the new rules may push more businesses toward managed security services, as keeping certificate operations in-house becomes increasingly complex. The final version of the document is expected after public consultation, and industry observers are watching closely to see whether the ministry will clarify how the new grounds will be verified and challenged in practice.