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Symantec report on underground economy servers published
23 November 2008
Symantec has today released its Report on the Underground Economy which details an online underground economy that has matured into an efficient, global marketplace in which stolen goods and fraud-related services are regularly bought and sold, and where the estimated value of goods offered by individual traders is measured in millions of dollars.
The report is derived from data gathered by Symantec's Security Technology and Response (STAR) organisation, from underground economy servers between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008.
Symantec reports that during the reporting period, North America hosted the largest number of such servers, with 45 percent of the total; Europe/Middle East/Africa hosted 38 percent; followed by Asia/Pacific with 12 percent and Latin America with 5 percent. The geographical locations of underground economy servers are constantly changing to evade detection.
The potential value of total advertised goods observed by Symantec was more than $276 million for the reporting period. This value was determined using the advertised prices of the goods and services and measured how much advertisers would make if they liquidated their inventory.
During the reporting period, Symantec observed 69,130 distinct active advertisers and 44,321,095 total messages posted to underground forums.
"As evidenced by the Report on the Underground Economy, today's cybercriminals are thriving off of information they are gathering without permission from consumers and businesses," said Stephen Trilling, vice president, Symantec Security Technology and Response.
"As these individuals and groups continue to devise new tools and techniques to defraud legitimate users around the globe, protection and mitigation against such attacks must become an international priority," he said.
The report is available from the Symantec website at http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/white_papers/b-whitepaper_internet_security_threat_report_xiii_04-2008.en-us.pdf (PDF, 3.05MB) .
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