Author and researcher Jonathan Lusthaus shares empirical research findings on the high-status family backgrounds of Eastern European cybercriminals on the a16z Podcast.
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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…”
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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…”
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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.”
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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…”
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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…”
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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…”