Cyber criminals could be earning as much as 20 times more than the cost of their attacks, according to figures compiled by Kaspersky Lab.<\/p>\n
In its research, the vendor of software security products compared the cost of the most frequently used hacker tools with the money stolen in a successful malicious operation.<\/p>\n
“Buying malware is currently not a problem: it\u2019s easy to find them on various hacker forums, and they are relatively cheap, making them attractive.”<\/p>\n
“A cyber criminal following this illegal path doesn\u2019t even need any skills \u2013 for a fixed price they can get an off-the-peg package to launch their attacks at will,” said Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab.<\/p>\n
The group noted that creating a phishing page to mimic a popular social network and setting up a spam mass mailing linking to the fake site currently costs an average of $150.<\/p>\n
However, if the users catch 100 people they can net up to $10,000 by selling sensitive data. The victims, in turn, lose their valuable contacts, personal photos and messages.<\/p>\n
A mobile Trojan blocker is far more expensive – today it costs $1,000 on average to buy and distribute the malware. However, the “payoff” is also much higher. The prices that the attackers set for unblocking a smartphone vary from $10 to $200 which means that from 100 potential victims they can get up to $20,000.<\/p>\n
The same sum can be earned by using encrypting ransomware but the “initial investment” will be twice as high – about $2,000. The users\u2019 losses will be also higher because the minimum sum of the ransom requested by the fraudsters for decrypting the data is usually $100, Kaspersky Lab said.<\/p>\n
To really hit the jackpot, fraudsters look for banking Trojans that target money directly. After spending about $3,000 on the malware, the exploit and a spam mail to spread them around, cyber criminals could scoop up to $72,000. The average loss of an individual victim is $722, Kaspersky Lab’s research found.<\/p>\n
How cybercrime affects SA online shopping<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n