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Russian Business Network

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The Russian Business Network (commonly abbreviated as RBN) is a Russian Internet Service Provider based in St. Petersburg which is notorious for its hosting of illegal and dubious businesses, including; child pornography, phishing and malware distribution sites.[1]

Activities

The RBN has been described as "the baddest of the bad". It offers web hosting services and internet access to all kinds of criminal and immoral activities, with individual activies earning up to $150m in one year. Businesses that take active stands against such attacks are sometimes targetted by denial of service attacks originating in the RBN network.[2] RBN sells its services to these operations for $600 per month.[1]

The business is difficult to trace. It is not a registered company, and its domains are registered to anonymous addresses. Its owners are known only by nicknames. It does not advertise, and trades only in untraceable electronic transactions.[2]

There is one increasingly known activity of the RBN which is an exploit delivery method by applying fake anti-spyware and anti-malware for the purpose of PC hijacking and personal identity (ID) theft.[1] According to McAfee’s SiteAdvisor, MalwareAlarm is a dangerous fake anti-spyware software and is an updated version of Malware Wiper. They tested 279 “bad” downloads from this one site.[2] The methodology is to entice the user to use a “free download” to test for spyware or malware on their PC, MalwareAlarm then displays a warning message of problems on the PC to persuade the unwary web site visitor to purchase the paid version. Along with MalwareAlarm, numerous other rogue software are linked to and hosted by the RBN.[3]

According to Spamhaus RBN is “Among the world's worst spammer, child-pornography, malware, phishing and cybercrime hosting networks. Provides "bulletproof hosting", but is probably involved in the crime too”.[4] RBN was the subject of an article in the Washington Post on October 13, 2007, where Symantec and other security firms claim RBN provides hosting for many illegal activities, including identity theft and phishing. The article quotes a spokesman for Kaspersky Labs that the owners of RBN might not have directly violated the law as they primarily provide hosting services; their customers are apparently the ones violating laws.

Organization

The RBN also operates under the guise of several other different names or what even could conventionally be regarded as international business or operating divisions. These core operations apparently have no geographical base with a few showing a physical location, however again the validity of these is doubtful. [5][6]

File:Rbn wikipedia.jpg
RBN Autonomous System
  • RBNet,
  • RBNetwork,
  • RBusinessNetwork,
  • iFrame Cash,
  • SBT Telecom Network (Seychelles),
  • Aki Mon Telecom,
  • 4Stat
  • Eexhost
  • Rusouvenirs Ltd.,
  • TcS Network (Panama),
  • Nevcon Ltd. (Panama),
  • Micronnet Ltd. (St. Petersburg Russia),
  • Too coin Software (UK)
  • 76service
  • MalwareAlarm


Political Connections

It has recently been aledged that the founder and leader of the organisation, known as 'Flyman', is related to a "powerful and well-connected" Russian politician. [7] In light of this, it is entirely possible that recent cyber-terrorism activities, such as the May 2007 denial of service attacks in Estonia [8], may have been co-ordinated by or out-sourced to such an organisation. Although this is currently unproven, intelligent estimates suggest this may be the case.

References

  1. ^ a b Brian Krebs (2007-10-13). "Shadowy Russian Firm Seen as Conduit for Cybercrime". Washington Post. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b "A walk on the dark side". The Economist. 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • RBNexploit - The RBN watch-blog that provides detailed information on the RBN [7]
  • Spamhaus – Rosko listing and description of RBN activities [8]
  • StopBadWare - RBN User's Guide [9]
  • Verisign / iDefense - Uncovering Online Fraud Rings: The Russian Business Network [10]
  • Bleeding Edge Threats- Snort Signatures for RBN Networks [11]
  • RBN Study - PDF [12]

News

Internet comments

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