I’ve been on the defender side of security my whole career.
I know in some markets crime pays more than legitimate work, but it never ceases to amaze me how much thought, effort, planning, and engineering goes into providing infrastructure IT services for cybercriminals. The people involved definitely have the skills to be profitable at legitimate work; it just puzzles me that they choose to support criminals.
I watched the downfall and eventual jailing of someone who had a great job, career, and family after he started getting involved in cybercrime.
As far as I can make sense of it, he enjoyed the thrill of feeling superior to others: Evading the law, exploiting people who viewed as stupid, and enriching himself in the process.
He got caught through a mistake that was really dumb in retrospect. I think he believed his intellectual superiority combined with the stupidity of others so much that eventually he couldn’t imagine anyone catching him.
It's not easy to go legit, especially in today's job market, depending on where you live in the world also.
The US is unique with its high salaries for tech work (on the lower end of those of high salaries is pure ops work like this though). If you're in a country where the average sysadmin salary is substantially lower (to pick on Eastern Europe for a minute, you're looking at the equivalent of ~$30-35k USD/year), it's not hard to see why its tempting to go the cybercrime route.
> those sanctions failed to target Stark’s remaining connection to the Internet — an Internet service provider based in the Netherlands called MIRhosting.
The fuck, i walk past the office of mirhosting every day
The article spells it out clearly: charging them with violating sanctions law by directly or indirectly making economic resources available to EU-sanctioned entities.
I know in some markets crime pays more than legitimate work, but it never ceases to amaze me how much thought, effort, planning, and engineering goes into providing infrastructure IT services for cybercriminals. The people involved definitely have the skills to be profitable at legitimate work; it just puzzles me that they choose to support criminals.
As far as I can make sense of it, he enjoyed the thrill of feeling superior to others: Evading the law, exploiting people who viewed as stupid, and enriching himself in the process.
He got caught through a mistake that was really dumb in retrospect. I think he believed his intellectual superiority combined with the stupidity of others so much that eventually he couldn’t imagine anyone catching him.
The US is unique with its high salaries for tech work (on the lower end of those of high salaries is pure ops work like this though). If you're in a country where the average sysadmin salary is substantially lower (to pick on Eastern Europe for a minute, you're looking at the equivalent of ~$30-35k USD/year), it's not hard to see why its tempting to go the cybercrime route.
I don't think it's that easy to go legit. having a tech job nowadays is already a luxury
Some people are ready to die for their beliefs. Others just to run businesses supporting their causes.
3 of the 4 persons named have russian links.
The only upside here is that criminals will (through legislation) eventually force companies to invest more.
you can build your own skills and develop your own motivation. but if the only funding you can access is illicit, there's one path forward.
or maybe it's ideological. this example seems to be a bit of a geopolitical thing too.
jarvis, whats the status of my dutch servers
The fuck, i walk past the office of mirhosting every day
I guess that's why.
Did you read this part?