The arbitration courts of Russia still use outdated technologies from Microsoft and Oracle

At the end of November, the Federal State Budgetary Institution "IAC of Support of state automated system" Justice "published on the public procurement website a tender^[1] for the provision of services for technical support of software for automation of legal proceedings in federal arbitration courts. Among the products that require support, the technical documentation lists legacy versions of Microsoft and Oracle products.

In particular, it states that the AIS "Arbitration Proceedings" still uses the following products: MS Windows 2003 server operating system and Windows 7 client operating system, MS Office 2003 office software and Internet Explorer 8 browser. All these products have not been supported by Microsoft itself for a long time, which can pose serious problems to ensure their security.

Moreover, the server part is implemented in the form of the Codex-Server software complex, and the client part is implemented in the form of web applications, and could work on modern browsers, but there are nuances. In particular, the documentation says the following:

Client applications are integrated with the MS Word 2003/2007/2010 text editor. Functional processing of the document text is implemented using MS Word word processor extension modules, which provide interaction with the Codex-Server PC.

In fact, this means that the transition to modern web technologies is constrained by a domestic software product that is implemented as a module for MS Word 2003. Moreover, there have long been implementations of word processors in the form of web applications, including among Russian web developers.

The Codex-Server technology, on the basis of which AIS Arbitration Proceedings operates, was developed in 1996^[2]. She became the first Russian carrier of legal and reference information in the Internet/Intranet space. The technology made it possible to combine the legal databases "Code" and the organization's own information resources in a single corporate database. At the same time, there are already technologies that allow you to transfer both data and tools for working with them to new basic software.

However, with the software complex "Judicial Arbitration workflow," which is the server part of the system, things are no better. It has the following minimum requirements: MS Windows Server 2008 SUSE Linux and Enterprise Server 10.3 server operating systems (there are no Russian operating systems), as well as MS Internet Information Server (IIS) web server and Oracle 10.2.0.5.0 database. Clients and application software for the system are specified with the same minimum requirements for Windows 7, MS Office 2003 and Internet Explorer 8.

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Public procurement

All manufacturers of this software, including SUSE, previously refused to work with Russian customers, and applicants for support are invited to continue to be responsible for these long-outdated products.

The terms of reference also include additional requirements for work within the framework of the support of the Forensic Arbitration Workflow software complex, which provides for the modernization of the system. They are related to the implementation of the latest legislative short stories in terms of legal proceedings. But in the additional requirements there is not a word about the modernization of the basic software or IT infrastructure or about the transfer of the entire system to the domestic basic software.

The maximum purchase price is about 10.5 million rubles, and the contract is designed for a period until June 30, 2025.

It should be noted that the listed requirements are minimal, which does not mean that long-outdated products are installed in all courts. Most likely, there are also fairly modern segments of the information system of arbitration courts. However, the establishment of these minimum requirements suggests that such elements in the state automated system "Justice," part of which is the system of automation of legal proceedings in federal arbitration courts, are still present. And, as you know, the system is protected as much as its weakest link is protected.

The outdated elements of the State Automated System just do not allow increasing the overall security of the entire system, since there is always a possibility that attackers can attack outdated elements and use them to disrupt the performance of the entire state information system.

At the end of September, the sites of all Russian arbitration courts and their postal domain were withdrawn from system the information security incident. Their work was restored only on October 22.

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