Russian hackers pose increasing threat
According to a news report from Reuters, "young,
smart Russian hackers are posing an increasing threat to global business."
Russia, with its "inefficient police," has become "infamous for computer piracy
and crime."
"People used to be scared of the Russian mafia.
Now they are scare of Russian hacker," said police Lieutenant-General Boris
Miroshnikov to President Vladimir Putin. It almost sounds like he's boasting, as
other countries would boast of exporting good food or fine wines. "All firms
with money are under threat, no one is safe," boasted another member of the
Russian elite, Yevgeny Yakimovich, head of the interior ministry's section "K,"
which (allegedly) battles hi-tech criminals. "Any organization with access to
the internet is open." The Russians claim to be stepping up their effort to
confront the problem. Arrests have been made, and if anyone is found guilty,
they could, theoretically at least, go to prison for up to 15 years. But this is
doing little to stop acceleration of the Russian hacker crime spree. "Every year
the amount of crimes go up. There were 233 last year, and there have been more
than 600 already this year," stated Yakimovich. "This goes on every day but we
don't always hear about it."
In related
news, Microsoft was supposed to release a Service Pack update for their
notoriously insecure operating system, Windows XP, but the release date has been
pushed back until August. Service Pack 2, as it is called, is supposed to solve
many of XP's security woes. Will it help global businesses fend off the Russian
hacker menace? Perhaps. However, keep in mind that Microsoft has done for Russia
what they won't do for programmers here in America: they have revealed the
source code for Windows. So Russians hackers, through their connections to
government officials who have seen the source code, could know some of the
darkest, deepest secrets of the XP source code. Just something for Windows users
to keep in mind next time they fire up their XP box.
Posted: Fri - July 30, 2004 at 08:23 PM