I work in information security, and I can give you a rough breakdown on botnet sites we've run into over the last year. (rough numbers)
25% have been Chinese (or linked to Chinese hackers, but using distributed hosting of hijacked servers around the world)
5% have been US-based.
10% have been Indian.
10% have been "other", including Canada/Mexico/Latin America, Africa, and Western Europe (like the German(?) Conficker worm)
A full 50% have been linked to the Russian Federation (and other former Soviet countries).
Why is this? Everyone has their theories, but mine is the combination of
1. Russia (and Eastern Europe) is a huge area.
2. Russian mafia really ramped up their cybercrime efforts after 1991 when the Soviet Union was retired.
3. Enforcement of cybercrime laws in Russia is lacking in comparison to Western nations, for various reasons.
Many other countries, including the US, have their own hackers and cybercrime groups. China and Russia are much, much more effective, though, and it's fashionable to hate on "commies" in the Western media.
Another reason (4) is that quite a lot of people [majority] download audio/video content and install cracked software on their Windows! home PCs.
I agree that external environment provided much more fertile ground for criminal activities [incl tech] in former USSR.
The key words are "fashionable" and "Western media". We all can observe the influence of media on people's perceptions of events, countries, nationalities...
You forgot to mention that the level of technical educational in Russia is quite high. Combined with mediocre quality of Russian business managers it produces oversupply of tech specialists. That in turn fuels rapid development of botnet ecosystem.
25% have been Chinese (or linked to Chinese hackers, but using distributed hosting of hijacked servers around the world)
5% have been US-based.
10% have been Indian.
10% have been "other", including Canada/Mexico/Latin America, Africa, and Western Europe (like the German(?) Conficker worm)
A full 50% have been linked to the Russian Federation (and other former Soviet countries).
Why is this? Everyone has their theories, but mine is the combination of
1. Russia (and Eastern Europe) is a huge area.
2. Russian mafia really ramped up their cybercrime efforts after 1991 when the Soviet Union was retired.
3. Enforcement of cybercrime laws in Russia is lacking in comparison to Western nations, for various reasons.
Many other countries, including the US, have their own hackers and cybercrime groups. China and Russia are much, much more effective, though, and it's fashionable to hate on "commies" in the Western media.