Cyber criminals now seem to be quite bold in carrying out their crimes. In a report released by the researchers at Finjan, cyber criminals have shown the audacity to quote a price on hacked credit card and bank details. Though, the prices have even come down sharply from $100 to $10 or $20. Finjan is a web security firm based out of California.

Now, the question arises on the buyer's front.Who is the buyer and why do they need this information? The questions remain unanswered as there is a high possibility of bigger corporations' involvement in such crimes as they do need such information.

The chief technology officer of Finjan, Yuval Ben-Itzhak, has said that information about patients' healthcare are on demand as insurance fraud or activities like selling drugs can be carried out very easily with the help of the stolen data.
 
Apart from the healthcare information, ongoing business deals, company personnel files and intercepted commercial emails are also bringing good business for these criminals.

The report was prepared after thorough investigation based on the contacts with five groups involved in online trading of stolen data. The team read this particular cybercrime groups follow a particular chain. These groups follow the mafia structure of olden days where the bosses used to operate as business entrepreneurs and the practical work was done by the subordinates-in-crime.

Finjan researchers constructed a plot where they acted like the potential buyers of the stolen data. Things went pretty much the same way as they desired as they were offered a menu of stolen data, with platinum, gold and corporate card details.  The sellers even went to an extent of promising for a replacement of the data if the buyers found it irrelevant.
 
The bosses provide the Trojan infiltration software for launching attacks which is carried out by the partners in different countries. These partners are paid on the basis of number of infected computers.

A chain of business associates carries out the trade in hacked financial data just like any other business. X

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