A look inside the secretive business of cybercrime, where hackers make more than $80,000 a month
It's a known fact that hacking makes money. But how much money? And how do hackers carry out their internal dealings with one another so as not to step on each other's toes?
Much like the fine-tuned systems of mafias and gangs that act almost identically to businesses, hackers have also created their own extremely intricate systems — and the scale of their operations is astounding.
Security researchers have been embedding themselves into these online underbellies to see precisely what's going on. This way they can get an early look at the malware hackers are cooking up, while also learning just how the system works.
The research firm Trustwave has been doing just this for years. It now has a lot to show for it, including discovering how much money a hacking gang makes and how precisely the cybercrime ecosystem works.
Trustwave's VP of Security Research Ziv Mador has put together a presentation he gives to customers so they can get a better handle on how to protect themselves. As he put it, it's just a "glance of what we find."
But Mador has given Business Insider an exclusive look at the wheeling and dealing of hackers inside this secretive world — check it out below.
Forums — the online places where cybercriminals sell their goods.
Forums are "The Craigslist of the underground forums," explained Mador. "You can see how they advertise malware they would like to sell to each other."
It's where hackers and hacking gangs hawk their goods including trojans, bots, and other malicious pieces of software.
Mador explained that it's "very difficult to get in" to these forums. They require a lot of vetting and trust from other criminals.
Exploit Kits
Exploit kits are the bread and butter for how cybercriminals successfully hack the masses.
They are a malicious toolkit of various ways to deliver malware. Or, as Mador puts it, an "invisible web application that uses a cocktail of exploits."
Exploit kits have become preferred by cybercriminals because of their heightened success rate. Before, an average of 10% of users were successfully hacked, but with new and better exploit kits being made the success rate has risen to as much as 40%.
What's in an exploit kit?
Here is a rundown of all the ingredients inside the exploit kit cocktail. These are the various malware cybercriminals have paid for, which they then distributed further to unsuspecting victims.
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