Unlike Western nations that follow strict rules when building their cyber forces, Russia’s FSB recruits the worst of the worst. From ransomware operators to credit card fraudsters, Vladimir Putin’s regime offers criminal hackers full immunity—as long as they turn their digital weapons against the Kremlin’s enemies. Discover how Russia transformed an underworld of cybercriminals into a powerful weapon of modern state-sponsored warfare.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Recruits Criminal Hackers for Cyber Warfare
01:20 - Putin 2017 Speech Defends Patriotic Russian Hackers
02:45 - 1999 Second Chechen War Sparks Russian Cyber Attacks
04:10 - Peter Levashov Severa Builds Massive Russian Botnets
05:25 - FSB Uses Russian Hackers in 2007 Estonia Attack
06:40 - FSB Hacker Dmitry Dokuchaev Arrested for 2016 Treason
08:00 - Evil Corp Maksim Yakubets Steals 100 Million Dollars
09:15 - Killnet Launches 2022 Cyber Attacks on NATO Nations
10:30 - Will Putin Regime Fall Over Cyber Warfare Strategy?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/bJ8iie9n
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Recruits Criminal Hackers for Cyber Warfare
01:20 - Putin 2017 Speech Defends Patriotic Russian Hackers
02:45 - 1999 Second Chechen War Sparks Russian Cyber Attacks
04:10 - Peter Levashov Severa Builds Massive Russian Botnets
05:25 - FSB Uses Russian Hackers in 2007 Estonia Attack
06:40 - FSB Hacker Dmitry Dokuchaev Arrested for 2016 Treason
08:00 - Evil Corp Maksim Yakubets Steals 100 Million Dollars
09:15 - Killnet Launches 2022 Cyber Attacks on NATO Nations
10:30 - Will Putin Regime Fall Over Cyber Warfare Strategy?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/bJ8iie9n
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00The wars of the 21st century aren't merely fought on physical front lines and battlefields.
00:05They're also fought in cyberspace.
00:07Dedicated armies of elite hackers and cyber warfare commands carry out an array of offensive
00:13and defensive digital operations, from espionage to infrastructure disruption and information
00:19warfare against their enemies.
00:21Many of the world's major powers engage in these activities, including the United States,
00:26China, Israel and the United Kingdom.
00:28The vast majority of these nations, however, have strict limits and rules in regard to
00:33how they recruit, train and deploy their hacking talents.
00:37Russia, however, follows no such rules or moral codes.
00:41Its Federal Security Service, FSB, actively in this the worst of the worst, recruiting
00:46criminal hackers to its ranks rather than sending them to jail.
00:50Scammers, carders, malware developers, ransomware operators.
00:54Hacking groups that find exploits in company networks to breach their defenses and illegally
01:00steal trade secrets and sensitive data.
01:03These are the kinds of people that Vladimir Putin described as artists during the 2017 edition
01:09of Russia's annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, stating,
01:13They're like artists, if they're in a good mood, they get up in the morning and begin painting
01:17their pictures.
01:19Hackers are the same.
01:20They wake up in the morning, they read about some developments and international affairs,
01:24and if they have a patriotic mindset, then they try to make their own contribution, the
01:28way they consider right, into the fight against those who have bad things to say about Russia.
01:33Interestingly, during that very same speech, Putin also claimed that Russia was not engaged
01:38in hacking on the state level, and we're not going to.
01:41On the contrary, we're trying to fight against it inside the country.
01:45But like a lot of the things that come out of Putin's mouth, this was of course a blatant
01:50lie.
01:51Even if the Kremlin does its best to cover up its illicit actions, there are literally
01:55reams of evidence to prove that it doesn't merely engage in state-sponsored hacking, but
02:00there's no qualms whatsoever when it comes to hiring hackers who have a proven track
02:04record of illegal and wholly immoral activities.
02:07This isn't how most countries conduct their cyber warfare operations.
02:11In the US, for example, cyber security experts can apply for roles as government hackers with
02:17agencies like the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency or the Department of Homeland Security.
02:24The application process is complex, involving detailed background checks and challenging exams
02:29to separate the best from the rest.
02:32In China, meanwhile, the government often prefers to rely on headhunting to find the most talented
02:37individuals from the country's leading IT firms.
02:40Even in countries that may be considered somewhat less scrupulous and more corrupt, like Iran and
02:45North Korea, there are clear procedures in place.
02:48The military may play a role in recruiting and training gifted IT experts, for example, or
02:54child prodigies may be offered positions at elite science and technology schools and placed
02:59on intensive computer programming courses.
03:01The methods vary, but there are at least always certain rules in place.
03:06In Russia, however, it seems that there's only one rule that really matters.
03:10Don't do anything against the state.
03:12As long as hackers obey that rule, focusing their efforts on targeting entities in other
03:17countries around the world, rather than Russian banks, businesses, or the Kremlin itself, then
03:22they're effectively allowed to do whatever they want and get away with it, with some even
03:26being rewarded with FSB positions and perks.
03:29This is more or less how it's been for decades, dating all the way back to the early days of
03:33the
03:33internet.
03:34In the 1990s, for example, Russia already had quite a broad hacking community, and many
03:39Russian hackers might have been described as rebels or free spirit.
03:43Many were anti-establishment, similar to hackers in other countries across the globe, and eager
03:48to use their unique sets of skills to promote the free movement of information.
03:52Then however, a major historical event occurred that would change the face of the Russian hacking
03:58scene forever.
03:59That event was the Second Chechen War.
04:01In August 1999, Islamist Mujahideen fighters from Chechnya carried out armed incursions
04:08into the Russian Republic of Dagestan to support separatist rebels in the region.
04:12They hoped to form a united Dagestan in Chechnya that would operate under an Islamic government
04:17and expel all Russians from the area.
04:20The Russian government intervened, and a brief battle took place, with the sheer weight of
04:24the Russian military proving too much for the rebels and separatists to cope with.
04:28The conflict could have ended there, but in September 1999, a series of apartment bombings
04:34took place in four Russian cities, killing hundreds of civilians.
04:37Despite some inconsistencies and mysteries surrounding these events, as well as a distinct lack of
04:42proof linking the bombings to the Chechen rebels, the Russian Prime Minister at the time, Vladimir
04:47Putin himself used these incidents as a pretext to begin a full-scale invasion of Chechnya
04:52and claim full control of the region.
04:55And so began the bloody battle that will last nearly a decade, with tens of thousands of
04:59casualties ultimately culminating in Russia establishing control and installing its own
05:04government in Chechnya.
05:05Naturally, with Russian TV channels showing the aftermath of the apartment bombings and
05:10national newspaper headlines blaming these atrocities on Chechen rebels, a large part of
05:15the Russian population was outraged and fully supported the Kremlin's military actions.
05:20Some even took their support to the next level.
05:23A group of hackers, for example, calling themselves the Siberian Network Brigade, decided to begin
05:29their own cyber warfare campaign against Chechen forces.
05:32Founded by a Tomsk Polytechnic student named Dmitry Alexandrov, the seven-man team used relatively
05:38rudimentary hacking techniques to cause chaos on Chechen websites.
05:42They mainly relied on distributed denial of service or DDoS attacks, for example, which
05:48involved sending large numbers of requests to a particular website in order to overload its
05:53servers and cause it to stop working.
05:54They also carried out defacement attacks, which involved gaining administrative access to certain
06:00websites and changing their appearance or content.
06:03Russian media at the time routinely reported on the group's actions, which included defacing
06:08the homepage of the Caucasus Center website, which carried messages from Chechen militants
06:13directed at their followers, supporters and potential recruits.
06:17Chechen media, meanwhile, argued that due to the scale of these attacks, they likely weren't
06:21the work of independent amateurs, but a state-sponsored group.
06:25Indeed, they even accused the Russian FSB of carrying out the attacks.
06:29This was never conclusively proven one way or another, but it was the first major case
06:33of Russia's security service being associated in some way with criminal hackers.
06:38It certainly wouldn't be the last.
06:40Indeed, as the 90s came to an end and the new millennium began, various other Russian hacking
06:45groups and lone wolves began to emerge, developing new techniques and tools to make their attacks
06:50more effective.
06:51Tools like the Masyanya email worm.
06:54Released in 2002, this piece of malicious software drew on techniques popularized by the
06:59earlier Melissa virus.
07:00Hackers named it after the popular Russian animated character Masyanya and distributed it in the
07:06form of email attachments.
07:08The attachments appeared innocent at first glance, but if any victims clicked them, their machines
07:12would become infected, and the virus would proliferate by sending a copy of itself to everyone on
07:17the victim's contact list.
07:18Together, these infected machines became botnets, vast networks of infected devices that cybercriminals
07:25can use to carry out the likes of DDOS attacks.
07:28And as the Russian hacking community evolved and expanded, new figures emerged to lead the
07:33way forward.
07:33One of those leaders was Peter Leveshov, also known under the moniker Severa, the self-proclaimed
07:39spam king of the internet.
07:41And that nickname wasn't an exaggeration.
07:44Leveshov's spam messages impacted countless people around the world.
07:48Anyone online with an active email account in the early 2000s likely received at least
07:53one, if not hundreds, of spam messages that could be traced back to this man, who owned
07:57some of the biggest and most powerful botnets on the planet.
08:00Through his various carding and spamming schemes, Severa rose to the very top of the Russian
08:05cyber criminal empire, and he operated with impunity, even sharing public price lists
08:10and ads for his services online.
08:12Russian law enforcement must have seen these materials and could have taken action against
08:17Severa, but they didn't.
08:19But before we explain why, you're watching the military show, and if you haven't subscribed
08:23yet, now's the time.
08:25Now the reason why the FSB didn't simply put Leveshov behind bars is that they realized
08:30how useful his talents could be, especially after he formed a hacktivist group known as
08:35the Civil Anti-Terror.
08:37Originally, this movement was founded as a way to bring disparate groups of hackers together
08:41under a common banner, so that they could operate more easily and efficiently coordinate
08:46attacks against Chechnya.
08:48The likes of random DDOS attacks and repackaged viruses became less effective as time went by,
08:54and cyber security improved.
08:56So Russian hackers needed to become more resourceful in order to deal serious damage to their adversaries.
09:00Under Severa's guidance, they mounted an all-out offensive against the Chechens.
09:06Then they started shifting their focus towards other targets that were also enemies of the
09:10Kremlin, like Russian opposition parties, independent media sites, non-governmental organizations,
09:17and even foreign countries that were seen as critical of how Russia was ruled.
09:21For Severa, it didn't seem to matter if he was bombarding political parties or sending
09:25get-rich-quick spam messages to random people around the world.
09:28It all worked and profited him, one way or another, and the mechanisms involved were
09:33largely the same.
09:34For years, rumors swirled that Severa must be working in some sort of freelance or contractor
09:39capacity for the Russian government, especially in 2007 when his vast botnets were used for
09:45a massive cyber attack on Estonia.
09:47Years later, politicians from the Nashi movement and the ruling United Russia party admitted to
09:53playing a part in this attack, and Severa too owned up to the fact that he'd been working
09:57with the party.
09:58And the evidence continued to pile up from there.
10:01Around the same time as the Estonia attack, a Moscow programmer named Anton Noskov decided
10:06to make a copy of Severa's civil anti-terror website to preserve for future generations
10:11to analyze.
10:12Even when the original site was eventually taken down, Noskov's copy remained.
10:17Then, in May 2007, he received a phone call from a man from Russia's National Anti-Terrorist
10:23Committee, an offshoot of the FSB, who said that his employers were very interested in
10:27collaborating with Severa and asked for his contact information.
10:31Noskov wasn't interested in helping, so instead decided to share his story with independent
10:36journalists, effectively revealing to the wider world that Russia's premier security
10:40agency was actively hiring malicious hackers.
10:44And Levyshov was merely the prototype.
10:46In the years that followed, many more stories emerged of criminal hacker groups and specific
10:50individuals being approached by the FSB, not to be punished for their crimes, but rewarded
10:55with secret government deals.
10:57While the specifics varied from case to case, many of these stories followed a familiar playbook.
11:03Criminal hackers would first gain a name for themselves via their illegal activities, like
11:07credit card theft, spam operations, building botnets, hacking major websites, orchestrating
11:13DDoS attacks, or distributing malware and viruses.
11:16This effectively was their way of proving their capacities.
11:20Many then began to shift towards carrying out politically motivated attacks, whether they
11:24be attacks on Chechen websites, against NATO nations, against Ukraine, or other targets.
11:30This was their way of demonstrating that their ideologies lined up with those of the government.
11:35Once the FSB identified hackers who appeared to have exceptional skills and interests that matched
11:40their own, they would reach out to them.
11:42Sometimes offering an informal or covert collaboration, but other times directly recruiting them into
11:47the agency's increasingly expansive and powerful hacker army.
11:51It was a win-win for all involved.
11:53The hackers get the benefit of governmental protection and freedom from prosecution, allowing
11:58them to continue carrying out their illicit activities.
12:01They also enjoy all the prestige, money and power that comes from working on behalf of the Kremlin.
12:06The state meanwhile gets to deploy some of the most experienced expert operators in the cybercrime
12:11world to do its bidding, with all of their ready-made botnets, malware and criminal infrastructure
12:16for carrying out offensive operations and information warfare with their enemies, both domestic and
12:21international.
12:22And since so much of this is done in secret, the state also maintains a level of plausible deniability.
12:29The Kremlin also ultimately retains the power.
12:31If ever its hired cyber mercenaries lose their utility, the FSB can easily take action against
12:37them, which can include prosecution, imprisonment and public humiliation.
12:42Such was the case of Dmitry Dukachev, also known under the alias Forbes.
12:46Forbes came from a small town and got into hacking early on in life.
12:50He was an avid video game player and hacked into a local internet service provider to gain free internet
12:56access.
12:56He also had a habit of documenting his exploits, writing blog posts, articles and even sitting
13:02down for interviews to share the details of his cybercrime career.
13:05In 2002, for example, he started working for a Russian hacking magazine while also running a
13:11carding operation.
13:12He regularly boasted about breaking his way into websites and soon moved to Moscow to live a
13:17luxurious life on the back of his hacking profits.
13:20One night, Forbes and some friends were trying to destroy surveillance cameras in the Russian capital
13:24when they were accosted by law enforcement officers.
13:27It transpired that one of those officers worked with the FSB, and once he started chatting with
13:32Forbes, the seeds of a mutually beneficial relationship were sown.
13:36In the years that followed, Forbes became an active collaborator of the agency,
13:41eventually progressing to the role of an employee with the FSB's Center for Informational Security,
13:46where he was tasked with monitoring, finding and hiring other cybercriminals he felt had the skills
13:50and mindset needed to support the state's cyber operations.
13:54He spent his time scouring hacker forums, reading posts of other users, looking for people who are
13:59both talented and patriotic, before offering them collaborative deals with the Kremlin.
14:04He reportedly did this for over a decade, recruiting an unknown number of criminal hackers during that
14:09time.
14:09In 2016, however, Forbes appeared to become more of a liability than an asset to the FSB.
14:15He was arrested, accused of transferring classified information to the United States,
14:20and charged with treason.
14:21He maintained his innocence, claiming that he was simply being used as a scapegoat,
14:25which is entirely plausible, given Russia's track record, but it wasn't enough to save him
14:30from a six-year prison sentence.
14:32It would be reasonable to think that Forbes' story should serve as a warning to other hackers
14:36who were considering working with the government.
14:38In reality, however, it didn't seem to dissuade many of them from accepting FSB deals
14:43as and when they were offered. In the decades since Forbes' arrest,
14:46there have been numerous recorded instances, and many more surely that are off the record,
14:51involving hackers and hacking groups entering unofficial agreements with the Russian government,
14:55lending their skills towards operations like interfering in Western elections,
14:59hacking into Ukrainian websites during the war between the two nations, spreading digital
15:04propaganda, stealing sensitive information, and carrying out extortion attacks.
15:09There's the infamous EvilCore hacking group, for example, headed up by a man named Maxim Yakubet,
15:15who's often described in Russian media as the hacker who stole $100 million,
15:19and drives a Lamborghini around the streets of Moscow without any risk of being arrested.
15:24Why? Because he happens to be married to the daughter of a former high-ranking FSB official,
15:29who used his influence to not only protect EvilCore from prosecution, but bring it into the agency's fold.
15:35Numerous reports allege that the FSB has actively tasked EvilCore with conducting digital espionage
15:41and aggressive cyberattacks against NATO nations over the years. In exchange, the group has been
15:47allowed to get away with extensive money laundering operations, extortion, ransomware, and large-scale theft.
15:53There's also the equally notorious hacktivist group KillNet. Operating primarily via telegram channels,
15:59KillNet formed in March 2022, during the opening stages of the war with Ukraine, and has gone on
16:05to carry out numerous DDoS and cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and government websites,
16:11in countries that are perceived as allies of Ukraine like Romania, Moldova, Norway, Latvia,
16:17the United States, and Germany. There hasn't been any clear concrete proof linking this group,
16:22or its enigmatic leader Killmilk, with the FSB, though many researchers believe that even if KillNet
16:27isn't working directly with the security service, it clearly has some level of protection from the
16:32Kremlin since their interests so closely align. This is the frightening truth of Russia's cyber
16:37warfare strategy. It's not about recruiting talented technology experts via legal channels,
16:43headhunting the best of the best in the country's leading IT firms, or training white hat hackers at
16:48top tech universities. Instead, it's a seedy underground enterprise involving official
16:54government agencies mixing with shady criminal groups, brokering deals in the dark that allow
16:59hackers to continue spreading viruses and scamming millions of people, so long as they do a bit of
17:04work for the Kremlin on the side. Like many other aspects of the Kremlin's operations, it's an ugly
17:09and heinous way of doing business, but it's exactly what we've come to expect of the Putin regime.
17:14But that regime could at last be approaching its end. You can learn more about that in this video,
17:19which details how even Putin's closest allies have started to turn on him and are now urging their
17:25leader to end the war as soon as possible. Alternatively, check out this video to see
17:30how Ukraine just served Russia a long overdue dish of revenge eight years in the making.
17:35And finally, don't forget to subscribe to the channel for more content just like this.
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