Cybercrime researcher Jonathan Lusthaus outlines how the absence of venture capital in Eastern Europe pushes educated tech talent toward cybercrime rather than tech startups.
“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 out and they don't actually have the opportunities following that like you do in Silicon Valley, for instance, to have a startup. They don't have capital. This is a big limitation on what is a very intelligent group of people who just can't make that transition. So what they look at instead is instead of creating a legitimate business is to create a criminal business because you don't require the capital to get you going in the first place.”
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AssertionNot checkable as stated
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Lusthaus: Multiple Eastern European cybercriminals have politically connected parents
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Lusthaus: LA Street Gangs Converted Prostitution Networks into Credit Card Fraud Schemes
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AssertionNot checkable as stated
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