America cracks down on Russian cybercrime
America has limited options in its mission to deter Russia’s war. So far, economic pressure has been the biggest cudgel the West can wield. Sanctions and corporate blacklisting have been a big part of this. But so has a parallel effort to weaken Russia’s more illicit revenue streams. The Justice Department recently announced a number of operations aimed at hobbling Russian criminal activities, including cybercriminals.
Earlier this week, German officials announced the takedown of Hydra, the single biggest dark web crime den on the internet whose lengua franca was Russian. Not long afterwards, authorities also revealed that they had incapacitated a botnet created by the powerful Russian hacking gang “Sandworm.” According to officials, Sandworm created the botnet by infecting thousands of devices all over the world with its malware, “Cyclops Blink.” The malicious network might have been used in cyberattacks and criminal activities had it not been taken down, authorities said.
