Underground Crime Economy Healthy, Security Group Finds

The net's underground economy in stolen credit cards and phished bank-account logins remained healthy over the last year, despite continued high-profile takedowns of online criminal marketplaces, according to a report on the underground economy released Monday by Symantec security researchers. Some $276 million worth of credit cards, bank account info, security exploits and hacker tools were up for sale on online web forums and internet relay chat channels, or IRC, that Symantec monitored from July 2007 to June 2008. While that's a far cry from the fictitious $100 billion annual cybercrime figure often used to fan fears of online crime, the figure shows that the underground market in stolen credit cards and bank accounts remains robust, despite the increasing proficiency of law enforcement groups in taking down high-profile figures in the 'carder' community.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/the-nets-underg.html