As politicians, Wall Street, and retailers watch economic indicators with a hopeful eye, Symantec has offered insight on a different economy.
Symantec on Monday released its Report on the Underground Economy. The overarching takeaway is that the online underground economy has matured into an efficient, global marketplace in which stolen goods and fraud-related services are regularly bought and sold. It estimated the value of goods offered by individual traders in the millions of dollars.
“As evidenced by the Report on the Underground Economy, today’s cybercriminals are thriving off of information they are gathering without permission from consumers and businesses,” said Stephen Trilling, vice president, Symantec Security Technology and Response. “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.”
Millions At Risk
Symantec observed trading in advertised goods with a potential value of more than $276 million in a yearlong period from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008. Symantec determined the value by the advertised prices of the goods and services and measured how much the advertisers would make if they liquidated their inventory.
Credit-card information is the most advertised category of goods and services in the underground economy, accounting for 31 percent of the total. The potential worth of all credit cards advertised during the reporting period was $5.3 billion, according to Symantec. The security firm suggested that credit cards are the most popular because they are regularly used for online shopping and it’s difficult for merchants to identify and address fraudulent transactions before goods are delivered.
At 20 percent of the total, the second most common category of goods and services advertised was financial accounts. While stolen bank account information sells for between $10 and $1,000, the average advertised stolen…