Due to the Soviet Union’s existence – albeit a declining one – at the dawn of the Internet, when countries selected national Internet domain names, an operative country domain (.su) exists for a defunct country whose territory is now covered by such domains as .kz (Kazakhstan), .yrp (Ukraine), .ru (Russia), etc. This vacant space has now turned into a den of iniquity wherein hackers can set up malicious or expository websites away from the prying eyes of high-traffic domains of extant and populated countries.

Security firm manager Oren David of RSA (News - Alert) said of the move to using Soviet domains came after Russia’s domain, .ru, tightened up restrictions on malicious content in late 2011, and that people are moving to the Soviet domain because it is there and they can continue on with their business in a place many would assume defunct. This domain now hosts many computers which are the controllers of “botnets,” which are networks of hijacked computers the controller can steal data and money from, and hold it for ransom, all relatively unchecked by Russian security monitors such as Group-IB.

One of the most notable sites on this domain, however, was a credit transparency site called exposed.su, which posted the credit card reports and account information for celebrities and public figures such as Michelle Obama, Britney Spears, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney and many others. This site was pulled in 2012. David and his team are working on new legislation that they will try to get enacted in mid-2013 to put a stop to cyber-crime on this domain.

If cyber-security companies are so concerned about the safety of the Internet from the .su domain, it would make sense to bottle up the whole operation. However, this is not the case, because there are actually many legitimate sites (a eulogy for Stalin, Soviet parodies of Western culture, etc.) that are on the .su domain, and whenever it has come up for debate to be shelved it has remained. This is one of many previously low-traffic domains that have now become a haven for cyber-crime, some of the others are Pacific Island nations such as Palau and Nauru, which have been offering sites on their domains at really low prices that are generally picked up by unsavory characters.