Sunday, November 30, 2008
MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO — The value of the underground Internet economy in fraud and stolen goods topped $276 million in the period between July 2007 and June 2008, according to a report published recently.
Online security software maker Symantec Corp., the publisher of the report, said regularly advertised goods and services in the underground market included stolen credit card information and access to bank accounts worth up to $1.7 billion.
The market featured more than 69,000 advertisers and more than 44 million messages posted to online forums during the period, Symantec said.
The company described 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.”
North America hosted the largest number of servers used for underground economic activity during the period, Symantec said, with 45 percent of the total. Europe, the Middle East and Africa had a combined 38 percent of the world’s illicit servers.
The data in Symantec’s report was gathered by the company’s observation of participating servers via its Security Technology and Response organization.
Symantec reported that stolen credit card information sold for as little as 10 cents a card, while the potential worth of all stolen credit card information advertised in the period was $5.3 billion.
Credit card information proves a popular draw, Symantec said, because it’s relatively easy to use for online purchases, while merchants find it difficult to identify suspect transactions before they’re completed and goods have been received.