Russian Business Network: On the Fly - The Russian Business Network Has You
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Maybe you have heard of them, maybe you haven't. Sometimes referred to as the RBN, the Russian Business Network, at first glance, is your typical web hosting company, based out of Saint Petersburg, Russia.
{Possible Headquarters of the RBN in Saint Petersburg, Russia}
But upon further inspection, it is anything but. It does indeed offer web hosting services, but only to those companies wishing to conduct criminal activities. Ranging from child pornography, phishing, spyware, malware, and more, the sites to which the RBN offers hosting commit an estimated 60-70% of the world's cyber-crimes.
The business, which brings in around $150 million a year, is not a registered company. It has no website, and all of its domains are registered anonymously. There are no pamphlets or advertisements on the Internet. They don't come looking for your business. If you want to work with them, you have to find them in the back alleys of the Internet, on obscure forums and message boards, through instant messages. And when you do find them, you must prove that you are indeed in the criminal trade, much like real life gang initiations.
They offer a wide variety of services other than web hosting. Chief among them is the resale of personal identities. Using such tools as the malicious Mpack (a toolkit of about a dozen trojans, keyloggers, and formloggers), they do not sell users' stolen credit cards or bank accounts; instead they sell access to a user's computer, for 30 days to 60 days, with the ability to monitor data the user enters into forms, search engines, etc. They charge around $1200 per account for the 30 day access.
Next: The Genius of the RBN >>
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