A few pennies for your thoughts — and credit card, HFR, TEC - NewsFlash - Syracuse.com

JORDAN ROBERTSON - The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) One economy apparently isn't hurting these days, the one run by identity thieves in the dark corners of the Internet.

Demand and prices remain stable for stolen credit cards, Social Security numbers and other private information, according to a new study by security software maker Symantec Corp.

Meanwhile, the supply of such data is steady too, thanks to the way the recession has inspired new scams targeting people who are worried about work and their finances, according to the Symantec report and another study from Gartner Inc. that was due to be released Tuesday.

"There's no pricing pressure at all, it's not dropping, they're not negotiating down," said Alfred Huger, vice president of Symantec Security Response. "That tells us that there are still the same number of buyers. The underground economy has not been affected by the recession."

One reason is that the prices for some records have been falling for years and can't go much lower. Stolen credit card numbers now go for as little as 6 cents each, if they're bought 10,000 at a time. The price can be $30 per card for smaller orders.  Access to hijacked e-mail accounts: 10 cents to $100. 

Bank account credentials: $10 to $1,000. 

Editor's Note:  Guess which one is $1,000?  Right...bank account credentials with the PIN Number.  See chart on left.  So how do hackers get their hands on PIN numbers? Through a PCI 2.0 PED which 3DES encrypts the Track 2 data, and utilizes DUKPT key management,  or a software platform?  Hmmmm.  Tough one.   

Scammers can hire people to "cash out" compromised bank accounts for between 8 percent and 50 percent of the amount they're stealing. Hosting for scam Web sites ranges from $3 to $40 per week.

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