Reuters is carrying a story today that tells us what the Russians want us to believe and little more. The story line is that the US is chasing Russians all over the globe to arrest them. That would be a good story, if true, but it is not.
They mention only two names, both cyber criminals who operated in Russia with complete impunity. In order to try to bring them to justice, and by inference, take them out of circulation for a bit, we have to wait until the come to a country with an extradition treaty with the US. That doesn’t always work, but the options are limited to cooperating officials in those countries.
The Russians have come close to undermining the international banking system, something Janet Yellen was warning about two years ago. It is under attack from North Korea, Russia and Iran. We should be concerned and we should take more aggressive action. Banks, even the big international banks, have not been involved in improving the security of this critical infrastructure. Some of them continue to operate antiquated systems with antiquated security. North Korea has already exposed some of that in their attacks on the South’s major banks.
The fact that China and Russia harbor the people doing this indicates there is more to it than just thieves looking to make a dollar. These are organized attempts to demonstrate a capability to disrupt the financial systems that we need to do business. What country would not respond to that?
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