Hacking US is Big Business in Russia

[unhappycamper]

Hacking US is Big Business in Russia
December 26, 2008
Chicago Tribune

MOSCOW -- Not long ago, the simple, anonymous thrill of exposing chinks in American software was enough of a payoff for a Russian hacker.

Today it's cash. And almost all the targets are in the United States and Europe, where Russia's notorious hackers pilfer online bank accounts, swipe social security numbers, steal credit card data and peek at e-mail log-ins and passwords as part of what some estimate to be a $100 billion-a-year global cyber-crime business.

And when it's not money that drives Russian hackers, it's politics -- with the aim of accessing or disabling the computers, Web sites and security systems of governments opposed to Russian interests. That may have been the motive behind a recent attack on Pentagon computers.

A new generation of Russian hacker is behind America's latest criminal scourge. Young, intelligent and wealthy enough to zip down Moscow's boulevards in shiny BMWs, they make their money in cyber-cubbyholes that police have found impossible to ferret out.

From behind the partition of anonymous online hacking forums, they boast about why they use their programming savvy to spam and steal, mostly from the West.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/hacking-us-is-big-business-in-russia.html?col=1186032310810