Abstrakt
Cyber crime has become a key challenge to international security. Although there are active groups of cyber criminals all over the world, Russia and other post-Soviet countries have been considered traditional hotspots for cyber organised crime.
The aim of this article is to examine the factors that might have facilitated the empowerment and global reach of hackers trained in the post-Soviet space. The article argues that the particular strength of Russian-speaking criminals must be perceived as the result of a combination of various factors that developed after the dissolution of the USSR.
The alleged cooperation between the government and illegal criminal groups in cyber space is usually regarded as a powerful explanation; however, this article proposes that such a relationship could only have been established after the criminal structures had achieved a certain level of professional development.