In Russia, cyber crime is cheap

Whether you're looking to hire a hacker for an hour, or have someone spammed, maybe you want a botnet of your very own, or a trojan that lets you take over a particular computer? All of this can be had for at most, a few hundred pounds – all you need do is look to Russia.

While there are plenty of other countries that are well known for housing a large number of hackers, Russia looks to have really made a market out of the practice. There's not much in the way of discrimination for customers either. You can be a small business or an individual, they don't care; as long as you can pay.

This network was discovered and detailed by Trend Micro, while speaking with Wired. Apparently the reason for such a professional marketplace is because with computer users becoming more technically savvy, it's far harder to trick people with traditional malware.

So what kind of price list is there currently? Well the cheapest would be hiring someone for a short while. Apparently that's just over £1 per hour. If you want to have someone's accounts spammed to death, you're looking at around £6. The costs go up a little if you want a Windows Rootkit: £180. Your own personal botnet will run you anywhere from £120 to £400. The granddaddy of the lot though is the intelligent exploit. Presumably this not only requires hiring a ‘professional' for more than a couple of hours, but a combination of many of the tools listed above. That will cost you upto £1800.

KitGuru Says: Granted you'd need to get in touch with one of these organisations, and presumably you'd want to stealth your purchase order – perhaps with bitcoins? But it can't be that hard to find the right place. Does a trend like this worry you guys? Or is it something you accept as being part of the online Wild West we live in?

Become a Patron!