A Russian company named the Russian Business Network, or RBN has been identified as a "Conduit for Cybercrime" by the Washington Post and blasted by the anti-spam organization Spamhaus for being " ...among the world's worst spammer, child-pornography, malware, phishing and cybercrime-hosting networks." The security vendor iDefense advises clients to block all traffic from RBN. Recently, the Bank of India was cyber-attacked, with much of the activity emanating from RBN servers. Yet, the company founder claims it is all just a case of mistaken identity.  Russian officials have shown no interest in shuttering this leviathan of Internet cyber-crime.

Amazingly, the Washington Post reports those using RBN servers are "responsible for about half of last year's incidents of "phishing,"" or ID, credit card and banking theft. The large California-based Internet security firm, Symantec, claims RBN is responsible for hosting websites conducting "a major portion of the world's cybercrime and profiteering."

Worse than the financial crimes, RBN hosts websites that procure and sell child-pornography. Symantec's report states RBN "is literally a shelter for all illegal activities, be it child pornography, online scams, piracy or other illicit operations." In addition, the company appears to have help from the old U.S.S.R. mafia, and obviously have support of the Russian Government by way of bribery.

European police agency Interpol says that these types of shadowy Internet companies are able to thrive in places where the rule of law is poorly established. Ronald K. Noble, Interpol secretary general said, "...organized cybercrime has taken root in countries that don't have response mechanisms, laws, infrastructure and investigative support set up to respond to the threat quickly."

RBN is not a large Internet Service Provider, but it does offer features most others cannot match. In exchange for pricing plans that are up to ten-times higher than a normal company, or around $600 per month, RBN offers what is known as "bulletproof hosting." This means that, no matter what activities are conducted on the site, or laws are broken, the company will only superficially acknowledge any complaints. If a serious illegality occurs, RBN might shut the offending site down, for a few hours, at best.

 While American and European police agencies have attempted to get access to close RBN, they have had no luck, for several reasons. First, the company itself does not break any laws, just the companies that buy its hosting. Second, usually the RBN-hosted criminals do not attack Russian Web users, so there is no in-state crime to investigate. Further, Russia is one of the least cooperative countries, when it comes to fighting cyber-crime originating within its borders. Then again, the business itself does not even exist. It has no license, there is no named owner, and even the Internet address itself lists dummy names as proprietors.

 Internet providers in other countries have become so exasperated by RBN"s continued illegalities that they decided to do something very rare on the Internet -- they decided to wall off the entire server from any of their users. When one company did this, their spam and phishing attacks plummeted exponentially.

 There is an interesting social aspect to how Russia became a hub of cyber-criminals. First, it does not help that the Russian economy is in very bad shape. Second, there are a lot of highly trained code-writers who are always looking for ways to supplement their meager incomes. Interestingly, there has developed the widely-held belief that writing malicious viruses and code is no worse than working as a designer at a munitions company. Someone is going to design these potentially harmful creations and make money from them. But the software designers are personally innocent of wrong as long as they do not themselves use the bad code to go after others. And then you have the fact that it is almost inconceivable to get arrested in Russia for cyber-crimes, even if the Government becomes aware of the activity.

 Since the Japanese anti-virus security company Trend Micro recently reported discovering a "virus cesspool" of over 400 viruses on one Russian server alone, the problem is not just in one company, but is a society-wide issue. While "walling off the Russian 'Net" as a response to their illegal activities, as one analyst suggested, is not a plausible answer for the problem, until the Russian Government develops a more helpful and law-abiding attitude about Internet matters, the Web will have to learn to protect itself in any way it can against these worst-of-the-worst Russian cyber-criminals.