DOJ's Indictment of Hackers: More Crackdowns Vs Travelling Russian Hackers, Thriving Cybercrime Orgs in Russia

The Department of Justice's indictment of four Russian hackers on has been perceived as fresh start of tough crackdown against travelling or vacationing members of thriving cybercriminal organizations in Russia. Two of the Russians put under DOJ's indictment of hackers Wednesday were officers of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor of Soviet Union's KGB. In news report of CNN, the two FSB officers were identified as Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev, 33, and Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, 43. They were said to have conspired with Russian nationals Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan, 29, and Karim Baratov, 22, who is a resident of Canada.

The problem is that the first three in the DOJ's indictment of hackers- Dokuchaev, Sushchin and Belan are all in Russia while the U.S. has no standing extradition treaty to have them in U.S. soil. Belan was arrested in a European country on U.S. request in June 2013, but later he was able to escape to Russia before he could be extradited. Baratov was arrested Tuesday morning in Ancaster, Ontario. But Baratov's lawyer is contesting his arrest, and with a lengthy court process it would take time, in several months, to have the suspect extradited.

The U.S. campaign against thriving cybercriminal organizations in Russia would only be much applicable to travelling or vacationing wanted Russian hackers as shown the cases of Belan and Baratov. But hackers actually know no physical space in mounting their top hacking exploits. The report DOJ's indictment of hackers shows that world's top and most massive hacks were carried out most presumably in the countries where hackers were arrested- Canada, other European countries, and the masterminds' headquarters in Russia.

In DOJ's indictment of hackers, the four Russians face 47 criminal charges as they indicted involved in the massive hack of Yahoo information that compromised 500 million of accounts. It was tagged one of the largest known data breaches in American history.

The Russian cybercrime underground has long been seen as focused more on financial crime compared to China hackers that pursue economic sabotage. The recent DOJ's indictment of hackers however dragged for the first the U.S. government's intelligence apparatus to cybercriminals an FSB unit was accordingly uncovered to have served as the FBI's point of contact.