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The evolution of CyberCrime Inc.

Date: April 07, 2008
Source: Iht.com/
By: Doreen Carvajal

PARIS: There is no storefront or corporate headquarters for Cybercrime Inc., but savvy salesmen in a murky, borderless economy are moving merchandise by shilling credit card numbers - "two for the price one."

"Sell fresh CC," promised one salesman who offered teaser credit card numbers for samples in New Jersey and Canada. "Visa, MasterCard, Amex. Good Prices. Many countries!!!!!"

Electronic crime is maturing, according to security experts, and with its evolution, clever criminals are adopting conventional approaches that reflect cold business sense - from supermarket-style pricing to outsourcing to specialists acting as portfolio managers, coders, launchers, miners, washers and minders of infected "zombie" computers.

"It's a remarkable development of a whole alternative business environment that's occurred over the last couple years," said Richard Archdeacon, a senior director of global services for Symantec, an Internet security company with 11 research centers around the world tracking crime trends. "What's been so astonishing is the speed with which it's developed and the effect with which the market has grown and matured."

In the United States alone, victims of reported Internet fraud lost $239 million in 2007, with average losses running about $2,530 per complaint recorded by a special Web-based hot line operated by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, a nonprofit corporation focusing on electronic crime.
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