Ahead of his Alaska meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump threatened “severe consequences” for Russia if it did not stop its violence in Ukraine. More than three years into Russia’s full-scale war, however, one pillar of the Kremlin’s power has evaded its share of consequences: Russia’s cyber industry. Russia has been home to competitive, innovative cybersecurity companies for decades. Many of these companies provide products and services to the state, ranging from defensive firewalls to specialized trainings to offensive hacking capabilities. (While the energy sector makes up a significant portion of Russia’s gross domestic product, the strategic importance of several other industries—private military companies for projecting power; cyber firms for blocking foreign hacks and facilitating offensive operations—shows that Russia is far more than, as some reductively quip, a “gas station with nukes.”) But despite the waves of sanctions put on Russia since February 2022, these firms’ closeness to the regime, and Russia’s growing technological isolation, some of Russia’s top cyber firms made more money in 2024 than ever before.
Russia’s Cyber Firms Are Getting Rich During War (Justin Sherman – Lawfare)
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