Criminal law protection of information security

The article discusses one of the main activities of many modern states - ensuring information security, one of the main tools of which is the institution of criminal liability for crimes in the field of information security. It is stated that the current Russian legislation lacks an integrated approach to information security problems with fragmentary fixing of individual elements of crimes. According to the author’s opinion, the orientation of Russian legislation within the framework of criminal law protection to computer information significantly complicates the qualification of acts that are currently common, committed quite often in relation to electronic information. In this context, a number of problems are highlighted, ranging from insufficient theoretical and legal development of the stated issues and up to existing gaps in criminal law. As a promising direction for solving these problems, the author proposes the creation of a separate chapter in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation «Crimes against information security», whereby it is necessary not only to combine the existing criminal law norms, but also to systematize the conceptual and categorical apparatus, taking into account the real state of information legal relations.