The Hindu Business Line : ‘Fraud related goods worth $276 m available online’

Pune, Nov. 28 Cyber crime today is a well-organised and thriving phenomenon globally and the value of fraud-related goods and services advertised on underground economy servers during a 12-month period ending June 30, 2008, was over $276 million.

These are the findings of a survey, Report on the Underground Economy, undertaken by Symantec. The report, released on Friday, details an online underground economy that has matured into an efficient, global marketplace in which stolen goods and fraud-related services are regularly bought and sold.

The “goods” on sale include information on credit cards and bank accounts, compromised computers and stolen identities. The names of key groups (now defunct) identified include ShadowCrew, Grifters, CarderPlanet and Cardersmarket.

Large economy

The report, derived from data gathered by Symantec’s Security Technology and Response from underground economy servers estimates that the value of what is on offer runs into millions of dollars.

“Today’s cyber criminals are thriving on information they are gathering without permission from consumers and businesses,” Mr Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President, India Product Operations, Symantec, said. “As these individuals and groups continue to devise new tools and techniques to defraud legitimate users around the globe, protection and mitigation against such attacks must become an international priority.”

According to the survey, credit card information, the most advertised category of goods and services, accounted for 31 per cent of the total. While stolen credit card numbers sell for as little as $0.10 to $25 a card, the average advertised stolen credit card limit observed was over $4,000. “Symantec calculated that the potential worth of all credit cards advertised was $5.3 billion,” Mr Ghosh said.

At 20 per cent, financial accounts were the second most advertised category. While stolen bank account information was on offer for between $10 and $1,000, the average balance of advertised stolen bank accounts was nearly $40,000. The worth of the bank accounts advertised during the period was $1.7 billion.

The Symantec survey identified 69,130 active advertisers and 44,321,095 messages posted on underground forums during the one-year period. The potential value of goods of the 10 most active advertisers was $16.3 million for credit cards and $2 million for bank accounts. The potential worth of the goods offered by the single most active advertiser was $6.4 million.

The study found that cyber criminals range from individuals to organised and sophisticated groups.

North America hosted the largest number of such servers — 45 per cent. Europe, the Middle East and Africa hosted 38 per cent, the Asia-Pacific hosted 12 per cent and Latin America hosted 5 per cent.

The geographical locations of underground economy servers are constantly changing to evade detection, the study stated.

More Stories on : E-Commerce & E-Business | Online Marketing | Security

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