MOSCOW—If the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russia poses a greater cyber spying threat than China, what will it make of this?

Russia and China signed a cyber-security deal on Friday, which experts say could firm up Russia's ties with the east and may become a foundation for binding cyber security ties in the future.

According to the text of the agreement posted on the Russian government's website on Wednesday, Russia and China agree to not conduct cyber-attacks against each other, as well as jointly counteract technology that may "destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere," "disturb public order" or "interfere with the internal affairs of the state."

The two countries agreed to exchange information between law enforcement agencies, exchange technologies and ensure security of information infrastructure, the document says.

Western sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine have caused Russian officials to re-evaluate areas of critical dependency on Europe and the U.S., and increasingly turn to the east. Russian lawmakers have also campaigned for tighter control over the Internet following the revelations by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has called for moving key online infrastructure into Russia from overseas, complaining publicly last year that the Internet began as "a CIA project."