The Cyber-Crime Black Market: Uncovered

By Panda Security

Many of us in the team at Panda Security spend a lot of time traveling and attending all types of events: from specialized IT industry fairs and congresses, to those aimed at businesses, end-users, etc. Yet even though it is becoming more common to hear about the arrest of hackers that steal information and profit from it in many different ways, there are still many members of the public, not necessarily dedicated to IT security, who ask us: "Why would anyone want to steal information from me? I don't have anything of interest…"

Another factor to bear in mind is that today's profit-oriented malware is designed to steal data surreptitiously, so the first indication that you have been a victim is when you get your bank or Paypal account statement.

Moreover, there is a general perception that this problem only affects home users, and that businesses are immune. The result of our research, as you will read below, shows that this is not the case: Today nobody –neither home users nor businesses- is safe from confidential data theft (and the consequent fraud).