Computer hacking becoming increasingly lucrative business model
By Joe Elvin
13/06/2011
Computer hacking is becoming an increasingly lucrative business model with plenty of vacancies for new staff, claims a cyber security expert.
Brian Krebs claimed that the malware business is growing at such an impressive rate that fraudsters have began to advertise highly-paid vacancies on underground hacking forums.
According to the adverts, these businesses are willing to pay more than £3,000 a month to highly-trained computer hackers.
Speaking to Fox News, Krebs explained that their skills are likely to be worth much more than this to the bosses of these companies.
He said: "They're most likely involved in some pay-per-install program. Services charge anywhere from $7 to $180 for every 100 times a piece of malware is installed."
News of the malware industry's thriving economy highlights the growing importance of investing in asset management software in order to protect computer networks from the growing amount of threats lurking on in the internet.
In an article for krebsonsecurity.com, Krebs revealed that malware companies are reinvesting into further research in order to create more intelligent malicious programs.
He said that successfully inputting viral spambots onto a computer network had grown to become a $2 billion industry and that the reality is that 99 per cent of cybercriminals were never likely to be caught or punished by police.
