Tactics of the KGB in service with Internet crime

The annual report of Virtual Criminology from McAfee, a recognized expert in the field of information security, was published for the second time. In it, the company's specialists, relying partly on data from the US special services, and partly on their own research, in the form of a review tell about the activities of criminal groups on the Web, their tactics, the methods used and the preferred goals. Unfortunately, the full version of the report is not yet available online, but those who wish can familiarize themselves with its predecessor last year: pdf version , 2.8 MB.

The central theme of the report was the emerging trend of attracting the most talented students and graduates of leading technological universities in developed countries to organized criminal groups. Young geniuses are seduced with easy money, elite status and the broadest opportunities to realize their creative and intellectual potential. We leave the authors of the report on the conscience of their lack of political correctness, but, admittedly, they brought a very good analogy: recruits in the ranks of the network mafia are recruited there by the same methods as the KGB did during the Cold War.

In high schools in the US and the UK, where people with a good income usually end up, future criminals are tempted to become opposed to the hateful “system”, to avenge some of their personal enemies in large corporations who for one reason or another did not hire them. In Eastern Europe and Russia, from where the flow of “evil geniuses” to the world arena is becoming wider every year, the main lure for young talents is revenues that are orders of magnitude higher than the salaries they would receive even if they were successfully employed in “civilian” companies. And of course, in both cases, emphasis is placed on the halo of espionage romance, fame and wide popularity in narrow circles of professionals.
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Last year, McAfee experts called the creation of botnets, or networks of zombie computers, which by the wave of their master’s hands begin to attack any victim indicated by their number, disabling any protection and overloading servers by the number of attackers. With their help, mass spamming has recently been carried out. The owner of even the most mediocre such an army can successfully lease it for $ 200- $ 300 per hour.

Other areas where the potential and impact of organized crime is increasing on a dangerous scale is, according to McAfee, online cash payments and industrial espionage.

References:

1. Internet gangs hire students for cybercrime, ZD Net
2. McAfee Releases Report on Cybercrime, Cybercriminals and Their Tools, Softpedia