Cyber Crime….more than just small gangs? Should we be more concerned than we already are?
May 29th, 2007 Drazen Drazic Posted in cyber crime |
I thought the following responses from the previous post were interesting enough to throw them into a main thread. Serious questions are asked and points put forward about a lack of action against cyber criminals that do present a case for consideration……
- While we all know that government agencies do partake in “interesting” business on the Net, how widespread and to what levels does this go? One for the conspiracy theorists.
- Anonymous said…
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Draz,
firstly, my full respect to Stas, whose presentation was remarkable and highly informative, however, the overall picture is *far* more sinister than Stas alluded to, in my opinion. Perhaps Stas was being diplomatic. :- )Look closely at the factual info Stas has collated, combine that with the information presented by those ‘other’ guys (you know - the men in black wearing dark sunnies -can we mention them ?) and other presentations by organisations who should remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
My question is - what is the overall picture of global online fraud right now ?
The high degree of sophistication, organisation and inaction by countries that corruptly ‘allow’ these operations to continue unhindered are real indications that online fraud has moved far beyond the realms of ‘organised crime’ into a completely new ball game. At best, we’re talking about being State-endorsed, and at worst, State-sponsored, crime.
Think about it. There’s *serious* money to be made, billions of dollars at stake, 24/7. And your country’s suffering, corrupt economy badly needs cash. You need a low-risk, high return operation. You need to be able to cover your tracks to avoid potential embarrasment & sanctions. What to do ?
This is potentially a very dangerous thing if you consider the implications - having the backing, suppport and organisation of an entire country to fund your best brains to support your country’s secret online crime operations.
And if your operation unfortunately gets exposed by another country’s online crime agency, who does your country blame ? You guessed it - ‘Organised crime’. Well, its organised all right, but this time it’s not the crime gangs or russian mafia.
Hopefully I am wrong. But I doubt it. The other question I have is, how many countries are already involved, and what are our agencies doing about it ?
- Anonymous said…
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Los Angeles Times
January 12, 1998 (WASHINGTON)
Foreign spies target U.S. industry
FBI says at least 23 nations take part in economic spying… Fraumann wrote that Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service had been “very active and quite successful” in economic espionage by using a top-secret computer facility outside Frankfurt to break into data networks and databases of companies and governments around the world.
Their operation, code-named project RAHAB, he wrote, involves gaining systematic entry into computer databases and accessing computer systems throughout the United States, targeting electronics, optics, avionics, chemistry, computers and telecommunications.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:07 am
Anyone thinking for a moment that State-endorsed ‘cyber crime’ is conspiracy theory or the stuff of spy novels, I strongly urge you to google the following name:
Dimitry Ivanovich Golubov
and while you’re at it, have a look at this story:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_22/b3986093.htm
Important postscript to these articles on Golubov - After many ‘failed’ trials, ‘replaced’ judges, disappearing prosecutors, Golubov has not only beaten the rap, but he has now been appointed in a very senior IT position within the Ukrainian Government.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:45 am
This is Stas.
I do think it is conspiracy theory.
As Stanislavsky, famous theatre director used to say in 1920ss -
“Nie Veriu!”, means - “Does not look believable!”
Okkama blade rulez after all!
Alistair MacGibbon likes to say something like that - “It is the same old fraud, just with computers”, sorry if I did not get the quote absolutely right.
I could, reluctantly, believe that Chinese or Israeli government could put up coherent program to build up cyber warfare capabilities, but trust me - not Ukrainian or even Russian.
Corruption of the scale seen in my motherland of Ukraine does not allow for any government plan bigger than “go there, steal it and run”. Golubov (allegedly AKA Script) got “protection” from one of the parties that run Ukraine, not from the State. Just like other alleged fraudsters became MPs or local officials. Not because state support of, lets say, street fraud, but because they had enough money to … acquire … support of particular individuals. BTW - I could not find any references to Golubov getting job for State. Could you help me?
I think that some government agencies tend to overcomplicate things - maybe it better to get funding - and project cyber criminal capabilities into state level. I wonder wether USA agencies were interpreting bootlegging in 1920-1930 as attempt of foreign government to destabilise USA. Soviet government definitely played that “foreign hand” tune during 1980s, when it was “fighting” alcohol problem.
Brains working in Cyber crime are funded by their own greed, their targets complacency, and human nature.
Saying that I think, we must not forget that cyber criminals’ capabilities could be called upon by government agencies in case of emergencies.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:34 am
Stas,
Thanks for coming on. That’s awesome! I will ask one question. When you were asked at the conference as to why governments were not doing much to stop this, you responded with; “what can they do? How can you stop this?”.
I know here in Australia, the US and Europe, they do control this (at least on face value). What is stopping Putin etc doing the same?
DD
June 4th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Hi Drazen,
This is Stas again.
Why Putin does not stop it?
Why would Russian/Ukrainian law enforcment go after those portals?
Victims are not in Russia jurisdiction, so there is no benefits from electoral point.
Perspective of successful court prosecution is low, so result would not affect local policy statistics.
Or, if translated into Risk Speek -from Eastern European law enforcement PoV risk associated with cybercrime is external - consiquenses are weared by foreigners, benefits of successful prosecution ripped by foreigners, but expenses come from local budgets.
Why would Putin do anything in this case? He got people like vice president of Russian federal reserve bank killed walking from corporate function - that would be higher priority.
Also - when risk turn to be local - everything changes. ATM skimmers are caught regularely. Russian banks have quite russless internal security and not afraid to use it.
Also - according to anecdotal evidence - Russian Federal Security Service stopped one of Cyber criminal portals when state was presented with evidence that portal might be funding particular ethnic gang linked to terrorist activities.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:27 am
[...] recent posts…..are we talking things that differ that much? http://beastorbuddha.blogspot.com/2007/05/cyber-crimemore-than-just-small-gangs.html [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 4:38 am
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title .more than just small gangs? Should we be more concerned than we already are?. Thanks for informative article
September 13th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
[...] This seems to come up quite often lately in the press. I think it was Risky Business (ITRadio.com) in a recent interview also covered it. Big Galoot raised it in a previous post. [...]