Page 58 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

SECTION I: EXTREMISM, RADICALIZATION AND CYBER THREATS AS AN IMPORTANT
SECURITY FACTORS FOR COUNTERING TERRORISM PROCESSES

Vega’s Twitter profile (which he operates from a US prison) has a large bat as his profile im-
age, to indicate his connection to the Spetsnaz. In this case, the Russian state set out a scope
for cybercriminals to act within, that is to say a scope where CarderPlanet was tasked by the
state and allowed to become increasingly prolific. The state essentially gave cover to Carder-
Planet as they drained millions from Western accounts. This is in line with the orchestration
typology laid out by Maurer.

4.3 Sanctioning: Russian Business Network (RBN)

For about two years from 2006-2008 (before going underground), the RBN was responsible
for almost 60% of all cybercrime. The RBN specialized in selling identities, botnets, malware,
denial of service, phishing, and computer extortion, amongst other crimes. Lending credence
to the kleptocratic interdependence thesis, the RBN was created by a 24-year-old known as
“Flyman” who was the nephew of a powerful Russian politician, granting him an extra level
of protection.

Despite having “Russian” in the site’s name, the Russian state has consistently denied that
the RBN is a Russian cyberspace crime hub. As a representative from Verigisign commented,
the Russian police have not concerned with the RBN it is “putting it to the fat Westerners

with too much money” (Warren, 2007; Insights, 2019). The Russian Business Network was
so well-protected in Russia that when the FBI went to the country to ask the FSB for help in
shutting down the RBN, they were told by the FSB that the RBN did not operate in Russia.
After checking the public domains of the RBN, the FBI found that after they had asked the
FSB for help all the public domains had been moved to new IP addresses (Carr, 2012). The
RBN is also suspected of supporting the GRU during Russia’s conflicts with Azerbaijan and
Georgia in 2008 (RBNExploit, 2008; Korns and Kastenberg, 2009).

The Russian Business Network, simply by its scale, caught the eye of the Russian State.
Once on the radar of the state, the Russians willingly turned a blind eye to the actions of the
RBN as it was adversely affecting Russia’s international competitors. This is evident in the
interaction with the FBI and FSB when they came to ask about the RBN. Also in line with the
cyber mercenary thesis, the RBN came to the state’s support when required in an international
entanglement along Russia’s borders.

5 Commensalism

Russia takes no interest in cybercrime organizations operating from within its territory as long
as they direct their operations externally. In what follows, I detail three cases that are similar to
Maurer’s typology; however, these cases differ in that the state has not even shown an interest in
the activities of these proxies. The Russian state certainly knows now what these cybercriminals
are doing, due to a recent new cyberspace law, enacted in February 2018, which protects its
online sovereign rights. This law dictates that everyone, including cyber criminals, must use a
state sanctioned virtual privacy network (VPN). Using only approved VPNs allows the state to
track its citizens’ actions online (Kundaliya, 2019). In addition, the new sovereign internet law
requires Russian Internet Service Providers to install deep package inspection tools to locate the
source of web traffic and to channel all Russian web traffic through state-controlled exchange
points, thereby allowing the state to survey its citizens (Ma, 2019; Rashid, 2019).

58