Competitions on Russian-language cybercriminal forums: Sharing expertise or threat actor showboating?

The report traces the history and evolution of article competitions on Russian-language cybercriminal forums, showing how they shifted from community-building contests to administrator- and sponsor-funded events with multi-thousand-dollar prize pools; it highlights that the Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware group sponsored an XSS competition to shape topics and potentially recruit talent or gather development ideas, increasing the risk that forum-driven activity could accelerate ransomware capabilities.