[ISN] Cyber Criminals Industrialize to Increase Effectiveness

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/cyber-criminals.html

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
April 22, 2009 

SAN FRANCISCO -- Cybercriminals have become industrialized to increase 
their effectiveness. They are increasingly using encryption to cover 
their tracks and prevent forensic investigators from recovering 
evidence, according to Joe Stewart, security researcher for SecureWorks.

Stewart, speaking at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco 
Wednesday, said the criminals are using virtual private networks to 
siphon stolen information from hacked companies so the stream of exiting 
data often goes undetected by the victim. They've also wised up to 
encrypting their hard drives so even when they're captured by 
authorities, evidence stored on their computers can't be cracked.

Lawrence Baldwin, a security consultant and operator of MyNetWatchman, 
who spoke on a panel with Stewart, described malware-distribution 
services that help malicous-code creators infect machines with viruses 
and keystroke logging programs. The entrepreneurs behind the 
distribution services control legions of hacked computers corralled into 
botnets, and charge customers (other hackers and spammers) for the 
privilege of running their own malware on the hacked machines.

The going rate for infection distribution varies from $5 per 1,000 
computers in Asia to $130 for 1,000 installations in the United States.

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