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The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

arstechnica.com

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#21
post #9

I'd be willing to fork up the $150 to see if they could hack into my own gmail account. Seems like cheap penetration testing. Pointing them toward myself should be legal as well. So who do I pay? In fact Google should be paying them to hack honeypotted accounts and see what they try.

That's a good point, why are these guys doing this stuff illegally for pennies when there are probably plenty of companies out there who would pay them decent money for a proper pen test.

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#22
post #5

It has always fascinated me how history, individuals, geography and natural resources influenced people, their mentality in various world regions. While Russia is rich for natural resources (diamonds, gas, oil), just a few people profit from them. Next tear of wealthy individuals mostly profit from serving those who profit from natural resources… Natural resources imply that value is already created. You dont have to…

What you say makes me think about Nigeria, as well. Historically, most of their wealth has come from oil, and up until 1999, they were ruled over by a corrupt military. Consequently, it seems to me that Nigeria's "entrepreneurial" culture is all about "getting money from rich people", rather than creating new things that people value.

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#23
post #19
post #5

It has always fascinated me how history, individuals, geography and natural resources influenced people, their mentality in various world regions. While Russia is rich for natural resources (diamonds, gas, oil), just a few people profit from them. Next tear of wealthy individuals mostly profit from serving those who profit from natural resources… Natural resources imply that value is already created. You dont have to…

Assuming you include Russian Jews, you get a lot of successful Russians doing tech stuff in the world -- just in other countries than Russia. Israel, the US, etc. have Russian Jewish populations who are incredibly successful in tech.

Oh yes, yes! Totally agree! In my comment I've been referring to a typical russian mentality. And Russian Jews have a very different mentality, from the one I've been referring to.

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#24
post #15
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to learn about examples of particular socio-economic reasons in particular countries for cybercrime being more mature than IT business.

Hmm, did I understand correctly that you think that in Russia cybercrime is more mature than IT business?

I don't exactly think so. I'm referring to places where people prefer intellectually hard, risky, unethical and damaging work (eg cybercrime) instead of working legally on creating valuable products and companies. I was interested to learn about examples of places and detailed descriptions of circumstances that lead to similar consequences.

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#25
post #9

I'd be willing to fork up the $150 to see if they could hack into my own gmail account. Seems like cheap penetration testing. Pointing them toward myself should be legal as well. So who do I pay? In fact Google should be paying them to hack honeypotted accounts and see what they try.

That's a good point, why are these guys doing this stuff illegally for pennies when there are probably plenty of companies out there who would pay them decent money for a proper pen test.

Probably because hacking into a gmail / facebook / twitter account is usually done by gathering informations about the victim by social engineering, and then trick the "lost password" form to get into the account.

Remember the guy whose macbook, ipad and iphone got wiped through iCloud ?

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any more information to this story? Do you know how they did it?

I'm sorry but I don't know how did he do it. I was wondered when I saw that I can't login in to my gmail account. I thought that it's impossible someone to hack my gmail account, because Google is a big company they should have some good codes there. But it's possible. In that day my friend sent my new password per sms my and said that it was a joke. if you want to hire someone, go to free-lance.ru, in left menu sele…

Question is, will they divulge the method they used to hack your site, and if so, can you trust them to tell you everything?

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#27
post #5

It has always fascinated me how history, individuals, geography and natural resources influenced people, their mentality in various world regions. While Russia is rich for natural resources (diamonds, gas, oil), just a few people profit from them. Next tear of wealthy individuals mostly profit from serving those who profit from natural resources… Natural resources imply that value is already created. You dont have to…

The resource curse is very real and well documented: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

The only seeming exception I can think of is Norway, which has a highly unusual massive government savings program to deal with its oil wealth, and then only discovered that wealth fairly recently.

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I don't know how did he do it. I was wondered when I saw that I can't login in to my gmail account. I thought that it's impossible someone to hack my gmail account, because Google is a big company they should have some good codes there. But it's possible. In that day my friend sent my new password per sms my and said that it was a joke. if you want to hire someone, go to free-lance.ru, in left menu sele…

Question is, will they divulge the method they used to hack your site, and if so, can you trust them to tell you everything?

Just get two guys to do it and see how their stories correlate.

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#29

This isn't just a "Russian" thing.

So, we take you at face value, with no citations or other authority? What if you're one of the Russian cybercriminals? Or that hacker that the Georgian CERT unmasked? So, +1 for vaguely menacing vagueness.

he needs citations and authority to say that it isnt only russian with an underground economy for cyber crime?

Re: The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I don't know how did he do it. I was wondered when I saw that I can't login in to my gmail account. I thought that it's impossible someone to hack my gmail account, because Google is a big company they should have some good codes there. But it's possible. In that day my friend sent my new password per sms my and said that it was a joke. if you want to hire someone, go to free-lance.ru, in left menu sele…

Question is, will they divulge the method they used to hack your site, and if so, can you trust them to tell you everything?

I'm sure they won't disclose their know-how. Not for $150.
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