Glut In Stolen Identities Forces Price Cut 152
CowboyRobot writes "The price of a stolen identity has dropped as much as 37 percent in the cybercrime underground: to $25 for a U.S. identity, and $40 for an overseas identity. For $300 or less, you can acquire credentials for a bank account with a balance of $70,000 to $150,000, and $400 is all it takes to get a rival or targeted business knocked offline with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)-for-hire attack. Meanwhile, ID theft and bank account credentials are getting cheaper because there is just so much inventory (a.k.a. stolen personal information) out there. Bots are cheap, too: 1,000 bots go for $20, and 15,000, for $250."
Hurry up and sign up for ObamaCare (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:those numbers seem unsustainable (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it goes without saying that when someone sells a $150k bank account for $400, it's because they know they can't withdraw more than $400 without getting caught.
Re:those numbers seem unsustainable (Score:4, Insightful)
Criminal activity often involves taking a great deal of value from the victim and converting it to a much more modest value for yourself.
In economic terms, the difference represents the risk taken. The guy who grabs the ID info sees little risk in that, but there is considerably more risk in actually using the info, so it sells at a steep discount.
This sort of thing actually is undermining the banking system. How long will it be before a transaction is as likely to be fraudulent as not?
Re:Change your passwords ASAP! (Score:0, Insightful)
Don't reload the OS. That's stupid. You'll end up in the same situation again- Change your OS to something *not retardedly easy to compromise*.
* my apologies go out to the mentally challenged
Re:Capital Crime (Score:5, Insightful)
'Identity theft' should be recognized for what it really is, bank fraud.
First the crooks defraud the banks by performing transactions in someone else's name. This is aided by the banks insistence on not implementing secure authentication.
Then the banks defraud you by insisting that you are responsible for the transactions in spite of not having a single shred of evidence that you made them.
The credit agencies compound it by repeating the bank's financial gossip with a wanton disregard for the truth.
The 'justice system' then aids and abets by not telling the banks to pound sand and by not convicting the credit agencies for libel./p.
Re:those numbers seem unsustainable (Score:4, Insightful)
Moving $60k online doesn't do you any good. You move it from their bank account to...what? Another stolen account that you can't withdraw from? Or one that has your address? Or one with a stolen SS#, but that has you on security cam footage? You move that kind of money out and you are going to be caught.
No NSA joke? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's time to get the government out of the identity theft business, as it is clearly wildly distorting the market.
Re:Capital Crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling for something to be a capital crime should be a capital crime.
O shi-
Re:Change your passwords ASAP! (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that leaves Linux, Windows, and OS X out.