Russia Has the Fastest Hackers.

Byline: Sarah Feldman

In about the time it takes to bake a tray of cookies, watch a show on Netflix, or be the shortest reigning King of France, an average Russian hacker can infiltrate a computer network. The average breakout time for Russian hackers was about 18 minutes. Chinese-affiliated hacking groups clocked in an average breakout time of about 4 hours, while North Korean hackers were able to gain access to a network in just under two and a half hours.

This metric, termed breakout time, measures how long it takes hackers to get into a network and to expand their access or jump to other machines after the initial breach. CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, collected over 30,000 attempted breaches in 2018 from their clients...