Your email IDs, passwords on sale online!

There's a full-fledged underground marketplace on the Web for all things considered most secure: your email IDs and banking and passwords, online banking passwords, mobile numbers and related authentication details. And what's more the 'merchandise' can be custom-ordered too. Here's a product'-wise rate list: credit card CVVs; dates of birth and fraudulent phone call service; flooding software, and a full trojan making set.

The underground e- Commerce crackers' marketplace

CVV2 Data Sets: $1.50 - $3.00

The CVV2 data set consists of a credit card's 16-digit PAN, CVV2 code, expiration date, billing address and embossed name.

SSN (Social Security Number)
DOB (Date of Birth)
$1.50 - $3.00 per query
SSN: $1.00 -$3.00
DOB: $1.00 -$3.00
These personal details are very often used by banks to authenticate an individual's identity.

Online Banking Logins
$50 - $1,000 per account, depending on the account balance
After obtaining these credentials, fraudsters would normally attempt to cash the account out by completing wire transfers to accounts.

'Fulls' Data Sets
$5.00 - $20.00 per set
'Fulls' information includes the full details, username and password), mailing address, card number, CVV2 code, card's expiration date, MMN, DOB, SSN.

Fraudulent Phone Calls
$10.00 - $15.00 per call (Prices vary according to the destination of the call)
Completed by Fraudster Call Centers, fraudulent phone services are offered to cybercriminals as a means to overcome language barriers for those who need to impersonate the account holder.

SMS or Phone-Flooding Services (aka Telephony DoS/ TDoS)
$25.00 - $40.00 per 24 hours of phone-flooding
Phone-flooding is usually performed in order to render a consumer's mobile phone unavailable for incoming authentication calls or SMS text messages sent from the bank.

DDoS Attack Service
$50.00 per 24 hours of website-flooding.
A 'Distributed Denial of Service' attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users by overloading, or "flooding" its bandwidth with an overwhelming volume of web traffic.

CC Checking/ Verification
$0.40 per check
Prices may vary widely.
$20.00 for 50 checks

CC (credit card) checkers are used by cybercriminals to verify the validity of the compromised payment cards.

Bulletproof Hosting
$87-$179 per month
Bulletproof hosting is a hired service used by cybercriminals to host malicious content on web. Bulletproof sites are much harder for law enforcement to take down.

Track 2 Data (aka "Dumps")
Classic/ Standard cards: $15 - $20
Gold/ Platinum cards: $20 - $80
Worldwide/ Business/ Corporate/ Signature: $30 - $40

'Track-2' information is found on a payment card's magnetic stripe. By purchasing 'dumps', fraudsters can produce counterfeit payment cards that can be used in stores.

Zeus Trojan Kit
Backconnect $1,500
Firefox form grabber $2,000
Jabber ( IM) chat plug-in $500

It is one of the most pervasive banking Trojans with an infection rate of thousands of computers per day. Zeus Kit: $3K - $4K

SpyEye Trojan Kit
Basic kit- $1,000
Firefox Injection tool $1,000-$2,000
One of the most advanced Trojans. It has its own IE and Firefox HTML injections, pre-defined bank triggers and a growing list of unique features. SpyEye has been 2010's biggest Trojan innovation.

Source: RSA'S fraud action intelligence team; Online Fraud Report 2010

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth.

A simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. You dont need a software or a server to use them. All a consumer would need is just an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud ( internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo , Google etc. The consumer gets to use the software alone and enjoy the benefits. The analogy is , 'If you only need milk , would you buy a cow ?' All the users or consumers need is to get the benefits of using the software or hardware of the computer like sending emails etc. Just to get this benefit (milk) why should a consumer buy a (cow) software /hardware ?


Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: "applications," "platforms," and "infrastructure." Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world.
In June 2009, a study conducted by VersionOne found that 41% of senior IT professionals actually don't know what cloud computing is and two-thirds of senior finance professionals are confused by the concept,highlighting the young nature of the technology. In Sept 2009, an Aberdeen Group study found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data center power costs.

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