While all eyes are currently on Sochi and its Winter Olympics, perhaps we should be divert our attentions to elsewhere in Russia.
RSA has been investigating the growth of forum-specific currencies, many of which seem to be rooted in Russia.
"The advent of new private financial systems and currencies in the Russian-language cybercrime community is a trend indicating a stronger level of collaboration, cooperation and sophistication amongst individual fraudsters and between fraudster boards in the cybercrime world," says Daniel Cohen, head of business development for RSA’s FraudAction Group in his latest blog.
Since Liberty Reserve was taken down last May, the use of MUSD, the United Payment System and UAPS has been on the rise.
UAPS in particular appears to be the most advanced and secure option for fraudsters, according to Cohen, as the system emphasises maintaining end-user security and privacy, implementing a data retention policy of just two months: a conveniently small window for cybercriminals.
"These new internal currencies are carefully administered and secured, ensuring a high level of anonymity in transaction and hiding the user identities, making it more difficult for law enforcement to trace, block, or seize funds and accounts," says Cohen.
