Last week, I focused on governments that engage in hacking. This week, let's investigate the hackers who are in it for the money.
One misconception about professional hackers is that they work alone. In fact, they work in groups. The process begins as hackers actively "market" themselves on hacker websites, citing their expertise in, for example, spam. At InfoSec Orlando, a speaker from the FBI even showed how professional hackers even engage actively in marketing, producing commercials. Once the group is organized, they target specific things to attack and create the plan.
Worse, hackers aren't profiting from hacking alone. Today, they are even selling their exploit code. According to Finjan, a security company, the most significant event in 2006 was hackers selling their exploit code.
(Source: Read Write Web)
According to the same FBI talk I attended, most of the organized cybercrime comes from Eastern Europe. However, there is a growing presence in Africa, Asia and the US. Why is it
international? Many countries either:
1) Don't have or enforce cybercrime laws
2) Don't understand cybercrime laws
In both cases organizations, like the FBI (and their international peers) notify local
governments about the issues. Results vary. For example, the Nigerian government had
no knowledge that its country was a significant source of spam and hacking. (Remember your
rich Nigerian uncle who recently died?) Today, several arrests have taken place as Nigerian
authorities are coordinating with governments worldwide.
Banks and merchants are the obvious targets of hacking since they house a lot of financial
information. However, other industries experiencing increased activity from professional
hackers include:
1) Insurance
2) Healthcare
3) Pharmaceuticals
In the US, the FBI recently published its annual CyberCrime report for 2006. One section profiled the main perpetrators in the US:
"In those cases with a reported location, over 75% of the perpetrators were male and over half
resided in one of the following states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee...Controlling for population, District of Columbia, Nevada, New York, Tennessee, Maine, and Florida have the highest per capita rate of perpetrators in the United States."
You can access this report here: http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2006_IC3Report.pdf
