Shaming Russia Into Action On Cyber Crime

krebsatwpost writes "The Washington Post ran a piece earlier this week that confronts the myth that cyber criminal gangs in Russia and Eastern Europe avoid attacking their own, pointing to numerous examples of late that counter this common misconception. The story draws on data from Team Cyrmu about distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) that target Russian and E. European organizations, intel from McAfee about Russian banks and federal agencies that appear to be under control over cyber gangs there, and tens of gigabytes of data stolen via keyloggers that disproportionately impact Russian systems, including that of a top Gazprom official. The piece begins: 'If you ask security experts why more cyber criminals aren't brought to justice, the answer you will probably hear is that US authorities simply aren't getting the cooperation they need from law enforcement officials in Russia and other Eastern European nations, where some of the world's most active cyber criminal gangs are thought to operate with impunity. But I wonder whether authorities in those countries would be any more willing to pursue cyber crooks in their own countries if they were forced to confront just how deeply those groups have penetrated key government and private computer networks in those regions?'"

Comments

Government "vs" criminals?

[shutdown -p now]

But I wonder whether authorities in those countries would be any more willing to pursue cyber crooks in their own countries if they were forced to confront just how deeply those groups have penetrated key government and private computer networks in those regions?'"

This assumes that "government" and "criminals" in Russia isn't the same thing. Which hasn't been true for, oh, ever since Yeltsin first came to power (and actually even a bit before then).

Who's to say those keyloggers aren't there with tacit acceptance and even encouragement of the guys higher up, as a useful surveillance tool that doesn't need any laws or warrants, and for which the government can only deny any responsibility?