Why Russia Hacks

By Mike Walls
 
Conventional wisdom holds that Russia hacks primarily for financial gain. But equally credible is the belief that the Russians engage in cyberwarfare to further their geopolitical ambitions.
 Third in a series on the motivations that compel nation-states to hack.
The Russian Federation holds an interesting, albeit a dubious position in the ranks of nation state cyber-actors. While ranked third among countries in terms of volume of cyber activity (behind the U.S. and China, according to Deutsche Telekom’s honeypot network data), Russia is widely regarded as a having the most sophisticated and skilled hackers.
Unlike the Chinese government which employs thousands of hackers in the People’s Liberation Army, the Russian government’s relationship with resident hackers is much murkier. The trails to cyber-attacks originating in Russia tend to end at civilian hacktivist groups and criminal organizations, perhaps providing officials with plausible deniability. This may suggest an implicit support for criminal hackers in Russia, given government’s notorious reputation as being inherently corrupt.
 
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