From Russia Today: Cyber attacks are now considered as dangerous as terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Russia and China are the most serious sources of cyber threats, according to a recent NATO report…

A notorious ring known as the RBN, or Russian Business Network, was set up in St. Petersburg in the late 1990. As well as launching denial of service and phishing attacks, it is said to have hosted over 1,500 child pornography websites.

Under pressure from IT specialists and the Russian government, the RBN officially crumbled in 2007, but no one was caught. Instead, the organization moved operations to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK and the US – and is still considered highly dangerous.

“They are able to take a whole country offline and off the Internet,” Ahmed Jart Ahmed from the RBNExploit group says about the hackers. “This is why NATO currently feels that RBN is a threat and the Russian hackers’ community is a general threat.” (photo: Russia Today)