The World's Top Cybercriminals

bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek profiles four individuals identified by law enforcement as the world's foremost online criminals. They're accused of crimes ranging from re-shipping rings to credit card theft and email fraud -- '...all are Russian. Strong technical universities, comparatively low incomes, and an unstable legal system make the former Soviet Union an ideal breeding ground for cyberscams. Also, tense political relations sometimes complicate efforts to obtain cooperation with local law enforcement.'"

Block them at the firewall.

[Trigun]

If you needed a reason, there's a big one. Why deal with them if you don't have to?

great idea

[JeanBaptiste]

would you like me to show you how incredibly easy it is to set up a webserver in pretty much any country on the planet?

a webserver that could then be used for phishing scams and stuff. it could easily report all the data back to me in my home country.

you're going to have to think a little harder about the problem.

Similar to Russian nuke scientists

[eviloverlordx]

This issue is similar to the (existing) problem with Russian nuclear scientists taking their know-how with them to rogue states and terror groups. We need to get Russia to fix its economy, so that Russian programmers can get enough money legally. I think it's in everyone's interest to have them programing games, for example, than cracking systems and writing viruses.

The World's Not So Top Cybercriminals?

[0olong]

By definition, the world's top cybercriminals will never be identified.

Putin and spam

[joe 155]

we're never going to convince Putin that what he really wants to do is crack down on people who are bringing a lot of money into the economy and who pose no threat at all to him. Trying to fight this through any kind of court just won't work for this reason. The only way we can really hope to stop this kind of thing is to do more lessons in schools about how pretty much every e-mail which isn't from someone you know is a scam. I don't really know what your education was like in IT in American schools but I know that for the first 3 years of secondary school (UK) I had a teacher who couldn't adequately use windows explorer to find files - we always got told to open the "package" (sic) and then go file -> open... not once did they even mention security. In my last 2 years it changed round a bit and there was some information (although a frighteningly inadequate amount) about security best practices and what have you.
If we want to keep people from getting spam scammed then education is the best way

All are Russian...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the Ukrainian, Golubov. Ukraine is not Russia.
It's Ukraine.

Kuvayev, a 34-year-old native of Russia who uses the nickname BadCow, is one of the world's top three spammers, according to anti-spam group Spamhaus.

Well, the second worst spammer (BadCow is third) is Michael Lindsay, of iMedia Networks, California.

Its not surprising that they're Russian (and Ukrainian) if you choose to ignore the Americans.

Re:great idea

[Trigun]

Not harder, bigger.

How can you set up a webserver in Malaysia if Malaysia is blocking your IP. My router won't do much to stop them, but mine, and yours, and theirs will. Shitcan all of Russia. Everywhere. Think of it as Digital Sanctions. Until the government shapes up, no data in, no data out.

Re:hacker icons a Good Thing

[misleb]

Yeah, that is just what the world needs, a digital version of the military-industrial complex. How depressing.

-matthew

Re:great idea

[eln]

Economic sanctions (and cutting off Internet traffic is definitely an economic sanction) tend to entrench bad governments, not overthrow them. In this way, they tend to have the opposite effect of that which is intended. Rather than inciting the populace to rise up against the government, both the populace and the government begin to blame the sanctions for everything wrong with the country. See: Cuba.

Russia has a lot of big problems, a lot of which can be traced back to its being basically an impoverished totalitarian nation for virtually all of its history, followed by a sudden transition into a new form of government (and economy) that they were not prepared for and had no history with. As a result, they are having issues basically with capitalism run amok without the benefit of effective controls.

The solution to this problem is more education among consumers here in the US (people who know how these scams work are less likely to fall for them) coupled with reforms in Russia that will make police less susceptible to bribery (higher wages and more training), and make criminals more likely to be caught and punished (technical training for police and harsh penalties for lawbreakers).

Re:great idea

[MarkByers]

Don't be ridiculous. You can't block an entire country just because of one individual. This could happen anywhere. Look at the amount of spam originating from America. The problem is more difficult to solve than just saying the government should fix it.

Re:The World's Not So Top Cybercriminals?

[Rydia]

Not really. Cybercrime and high-profile crime in areas with bad law enforcement are rarely that hidden. In Chicago, for instance, the police department up until recently actually posted organizational charts of the outfit so everyone in the department knew who they were.

The mafia and cybercriminals are very similar in that regard- you don't need to be hidden in a bunker somewhere, just be very good at separating yourself (be it through proxies, wardriven connections, a hired gang or expendable street thugs) from the instrumentalities of your crimes. "Everyone knows they did it" is nice, but it's not evidence.

Re:Russian Local Law Enforcement?

[Pope]

"In my opinion, this hurts local small businesses immensely."

More to the point, it hurts the CITIZENS immensely.

Strong technical universities, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Strong technical universities, comparatively low incomes, ...

For a moment there I though you were talking about India.

Re:cat and mouse?

[dr2chase]

What's a crime, depends on where you are. Alcohol was illegal once in this country, and tobacco's plenty addictive (and cold-turkey from caffeine is no fun either). Suppose that Spain passed a law against anti-personnel land mines; you got any problem with extraditing the CEOs of US companies that produce these abominations to Spain for trial?

Re:cat and mouse?

[Rydia]

Evidence, evidence, evidence. Organized crime is brilliant at insulating those at the top from the orders they give those at the bottom. Even in countries where what they're doing is illegal (often not the case with spammers) you still need to tie that person to something through evidence.

RICO is nice in that you can nab higher-ups if you can get two predicate acts on an underling, but a) they tend to shelve said underling after he's busted, because they have lawyers too, and b) most of these acts are against people they've intimidated, cowed, blackmailed, or are criminals themselves, which means we get a missing person and not a murder rap.

You're vastly underestimating how difficult it is to get these guys, essentially you run detectives around looking into what they did, looking for the small screwup that lets them open an investigation and start searching places. It's long and it's tough. Like I said before, "everyone knows he's doing it" isn't evidence.

Re:The World's Not So Top Cybercriminals?

[KingMotley]

I would say by the definition that the "best" are the ones that are able to commit their crimes, cover their tracks (either through not allowing anyone to track their activities back to them, or better, to not even allow those who have been attacked be aware of the crime at all). Those who have been identified, aren't that good. They got caught. Being able to commit a crime is easy. Being able to commit it, and get away with it isn't (I don't consider being hunted by the FBI "getting away with it").

Re:hacker icons a Good Thing

[winkydink]

Um, wasn't the internet (as well as numerous other advances in digital technology) spawned by the military-industrial complex?

Re:hacker icons a Good Thing

[nasor]

This is an example of what economists refer to as the "broken window fallacy."

The fallacy goes something like this: "On the whole, it's a good thing for people to go around randomly breaking windows. It creates jobs for the window installers and people who work in glass factories, and even helps to create new markets for shatter-proof windows!"

Although at first glance this appears to help the economy, it's an illusion; all the money that goes toward replacing the broken window is wasted money that could have been spent on actually improving economic infrastructure, rather than simply maintaining it. Perhaps new and improved shatter-resistant windows will be developed, but if there was enough demand to justify their development then it would have happened anyway.

Similarly, every dollar that people have to spend on things like antivirus software is a dollar that they weren't able to spend on improving their products, or hiring more employees of their own, or offering people cheaper prices. All this only benefits you if you are carefully placed within the market to take advantage of it. So yes, computer crime is good for you if you happen to work for a security company, but on the whole it's bad for society and the economy.