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These black-market services even include things one might not expect from cybercrime retailers,
like ongoing customer support.
That's exactly what the North American marketplace offers for crypting services. One seller offered
crypting of unlimited files for a month for $1,000 plus continual application programming interface
updates, for instance.
The RAT builder mentioned above comes with either "silver" or "gold" support options.
Let's take a closer look at the market for DDoS attacks. These efforts aim to overwhelm a network,
shutting down systems crucial for an organization such as a retailer's website.
For an attack throwing 40 Gigabytes per second at a network for five minutes, the going rate is $5.
Larger disruptions cost more. For instance, a 125 GB attack lasting 33 minutes would run you $60.
'Chipped' credit card information stolen in data breaches receives higher prices
The North American black market has three main types of offerings, the report said:
Crimeware.
Stolen data dumps and fake documents.
Drugs and weapons.
By far the largest of these categories was drugs. Stolen data dumps made up 16 percent of the
sites, followed closely by those promoting fake documents. Those data dumps include credit card
information culled from a data breach.
For instance, a standard batch of 100 U.S.-issued credit card credentials runs about $20. A similar
set of credentials for the higher-security "chip" cards - which just this fall became the default for new
cards in the U.S. - can cost twice as much.
Open access for aspiring cybercriminals
One of the distinguishing characteristics of North America's online black market versus similar
marketplaces worldwide is the system's relative openness. Hackers in Russia, for instance, operate
primarily on the Dark Web, outside the reach of conventional search engines.
Outside North America, access to these marketplaces tends to be tightly controlled by the criminal
syndicates who run them.
There's also a bit of specialization worldwide. Russian cybercriminals, for instance, tend to offer
higher-level tools and expertise needed to create, launch and sustain advanced persistent threats.
One side effect of this open tendency is that markets include many sellers, which researchers said
keeps North American prices low.
44 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – January 2016 Edition
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