A recent survey looking into cybercrime activities and the underground economy reports that online underground activities have developed into a global marketplace on which both stolen goods and fraud-related services are frequently traded. The study shows that over USD 276 million worth of such illegal goods were advertised online between 1July 2007 and 30 June 2008.

At the top of the most frequently advertised categories of goods and services is credit card information, which represents 31 percent of the total. Fraudsters sell stolen credit card numbers for USD 0.10 – USD 25 per card, while the advertised stolen credit card limits reach on average USD 4.000. On the whole, credit card limits advertised during the one-year surveyed interval amount to a potential worth of USD 5.3 billion.

The “Report on the Underground Economy”, which was carried out by security, storage and systems management company Symantec, also points out that the number of active advertisers on underground forums reached almost 70.000 in the surveyed interval, while the top ten such active advertisers alone promoted stolen credit card information worth USD 16.6 million and stolen bank accounts details worth USD 2 million.

From a geographic point of view, the report indicates that the majority of servers used for underground activities are hosted in the United States (45 percent), with 38 percent of servers hosted in Europe/Middle East/Africa, 12 percent in Asia / Pacific and 5 percent in Latin America.