PARTS of you can be traded.
Not your body parts but bits or huge chunks of your digital identity. Your online gaming account is one.
Gamers – you are sitting ducks because you are vulnerable to hackers.
Not your body parts but bits or huge chunks of your digital identity. Your online gaming account is one.
Gamers – you are sitting ducks because you are vulnerable to hackers.
Anything linked to money is fair game. Like your bank or credit card account. And there are black markets where your digital assets are traded like commodities. Up to $40 is the going rate for your credit card details. Your bank account may fetch more than $1,000.
Digital thieves and rogues conduct their business in cyberspace. Division of labour is practised with specialists that focus on their own areas like software writing or spamming. These communities are virtual. But the threat posed to computer users is real.
To help explain the inner workings of the cybercrime industry to journalists, security firm Symantec held the Norton Black Market Event at Culver City in the United States at the end of last month and I was there.
Digital thieves and rogues conduct their business in cyberspace. Division of labour is practised with specialists that focus on their own areas like software writing or spamming. These communities are virtual. But the threat posed to computer users is real.
To help explain the inner workings of the cybercrime industry to journalists, security firm Symantec held the Norton Black Market Event at Culver City in the United States at the end of last month and I was there.
Step into Symantec's mockup of the black market for cybercriminals.
ST PHOTO: Tan Chong Yaw
The black market was done up like a supermarket inside a container. You will not find such a place anywhere in the world but it helps in visualising how digital loot and hacking tools are being sold. Credit cards are stuffed into sacks and sold by the shovelful. These are complete with verification number – called CVV2 – that you find the back of your credit card. That’s all you need for an online purchase – like a stack of Blu-ray movies from Amazon.
Credit card details are sold in bulk
ST PHOTO: Tan Chong Yaw
I was shown a machine hooked to a laptop that could spit out an actual credit card in minutes with the magnetic strip coded with some unfortunate bloke’s details. I didn’t do it but a fellow journalist had a card done for him as a souvenir with just his name on it. But imagine if the card were properly coded. Pop into a luxury watch store, buy a pricey timepiece with it and then waltz out with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise in your hands.
Then, head towards a friendly fence – someone who buys stolen goods at a stiff discount for his services – and you finish with cold hard cash in your hands. Stolen credit card details can be sold over the Internet. Credit card details are just numbers and words can be e-mailed. And the money can be transferred digitally – like to a Western Union – an American financial services firm - account.
Then, head towards a friendly fence – someone who buys stolen goods at a stiff discount for his services – and you finish with cold hard cash in your hands. Stolen credit card details can be sold over the Internet. Credit card details are just numbers and words can be e-mailed. And the money can be transferred digitally – like to a Western Union – an American financial services firm - account.
Ready-made hacking tools can be purchased off the shelf
ST PHOTO: Tan Chong Yaw
Then, there are hacking tools that are developed by software writers. You can buy fully developed and customisable tools to control a PC remotely to steal the contents on it. So even the non-techie can be involved in cybercrime. He can hire specialists to do the tech heavy lifting for him.
I was tickled that even hacking software gets pirated. What did you expect? Honour among thieves?
So writers adopt the subscription model that antivirus firms use. A writer will update or tweak his program to evade detection as long as you pay the subscription. Cybercriminals are in this for the money, not for bragging rights of beating security systems.
The hacker wants his malicious code to reside undetected in your PC for as long as possible. So he can snoop on you. He can slip in software – called a screen scraper – that see what you can doing on your screen. It would be like a video camera is trained on your monitor. And he can be thousands of kilometres away.
I was tickled that even hacking software gets pirated. What did you expect? Honour among thieves?
So writers adopt the subscription model that antivirus firms use. A writer will update or tweak his program to evade detection as long as you pay the subscription. Cybercriminals are in this for the money, not for bragging rights of beating security systems.
The hacker wants his malicious code to reside undetected in your PC for as long as possible. So he can snoop on you. He can slip in software – called a screen scraper – that see what you can doing on your screen. It would be like a video camera is trained on your monitor. And he can be thousands of kilometres away.
Now playing a cybercriminal’s screen – your online banking transactions
ST PHOTO: Tan Chong Yaw
So, the hackers’ black market is like that of the origins of the flea market at Sungei Rd which started as a thieves’ market. They still trade in stolen – now digital – goods. But the tools are advanced software and the cyberspace platform is global.
