March 4, 2009 By James Kimer

Cyber Crime in Russia

This interesting article on Security Fix, a Washington Post technology blog, finds that of all the cyber crime coming out of Russia, it is actually Russian victims that top the list for hackers (this apparently contradicts the widespread myth that hackers based in Eastern Europe and Russia focus all their energy on attacking Western sites).  Below, I cite some of the banks and government offices in Russia which are controlled by cyber gangs. 

According to author Brian Krebs, even Gazprom executives have been hacked:  “Just a few minutes of digging through more than 30 gigabytes of keylogged data intercepted by security researchers yielded some interesting results, and more than a few important victims in Russia and Eastern Europe had their corporate Microsoft Outlook e-mail credentials stolen, along with other user names and passwords. Among them was Vladimir Novikov, head of the corporate management department for Gazprom Neft, one of the largest oil-producing companies in Russia. Mr. Novikov did not return e-mails seeking comment.