Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lusthaus: Former Soviet states dominate underground malware coding and development
“So, basically, if we think about sort of former Soviet Union states, they're very well known for the more technical aspects of cybercrime. So, these are primarily the cybercriminals from here are the ones who are responsible for actually coding the malware, fo…”
Insight
Lusthaus: Eastern European tech graduates enter cybercrime due to capital shortages
“What we're seeing is a massive pool of very, very talented people who are highly educated, actually, have an excellent university system. These are people with, you know, degrees in math, science, technology, Engineering. And what's happening is they're coming…”
Assertion Supported
Lusthaus: Cybercrime entities operate out of physical office spaces like tech firms
“And in some cases we see people operating out of physical office space, and they really begin to look like technology companies, and actually they are technology companies, they're just criminal ones.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lusthaus: Multiple Eastern European cybercriminals have politically connected parents
“I found actually more than a handful of people who were involved in cybercrime in parts of Eastern Europe actually had parents who are very influential people, whether they were law enforcement agents, whether they were political figures.”
Assertion Supported
Lusthaus: LA Street Gangs Converted Prostitution Networks into Credit Card Fraud Schemes
“One of the most interesting ones I think I encountered was examples of street gangs in LA who basically were traditionally running prostitution operations, but what they would do was from time to time convert these operations into a cashing out scheme. So they…”
Insight
Lusthaus: Cybercrime vendors absorb risk by keeping fixed online brands
“But on the other extreme, you get certain cyber criminals who will change their names very regularly. So you might see this particularly around very high level Russian speaking malware coders. So people who are really the top layer of the industry Obviously, I…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lusthaus: Traditional organized crime is not taking over cybercrime
“So I think, you know, there's a lot of talk about traditional organized crime groups taking over cyber crime. The search I've done, I don't think that's the case. I think they're involved in certain ways, particularly on the money side of things. That's a part…”
Insight
Lusthaus: Cybercriminals maximize profits by structuring themselves like traditional business firms
“And in some cases, these groups look a lot like firms, whether it's a venture capitalist firm, whether it's people selling various products. For criminals, actually, and for cyber criminals, they're also employing a similar structure, which is to have a team o…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lusthaus: Online malware development groups cap out at 8 to 10 members
“Malware groups that generally the, you know, eight to 10 is probably going to be the largest size involved in, you know, kind of malware operation of writing the code and dealing with the code because it becomes quite difficult to actually sustain the group st…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lusthaus: Western cybercriminals specialize in cash-out operations
“I think what the West is known for is cash out experts. So these are people who are primarily responsible for converting these sort of virtual gains into monetary or physical ones.”
Assertion Supported
Lusthaus: Carder Planet was the first major online cybercrime marketplace
“Carter Planet was the first marketplace where things really started to take off, and if we're looking for that kind of shift, at least in a symbolic way, that's probably the case where it happened, because you started to see for the first time this sort of lar…”
Assertion Supported
Lusthaus: Roman Seleznev's cybercrime group made tens of millions in fraud
“He and his group had made tens of millions of dollars out of credit card fraud.”
Assertion Supported
Lusthaus: Cybercriminal maintained single online handle over a decade
“So I've encountered one case actually that I talk about in the book of a particular former cyber criminal who's never changed his nickname online. He's basically held the same name, the same nickname, over the course of his entire cyber criminal career. And he…”
