Criminals advertise for hackers online

IT SEEMS THAT the job of writing malware and hacking computers has become so mainstream that recruitment is now done by online job adverts.

Kevin Stevens, a threat intelligence analyst for SecureWorks told the Black Hat cybersecurity conference outside Washington that two companies are hiring that advertise online.

What the job adverts say is that they want people who are willing to take malicious code they provide and link it to something that people will click on. The developers collect a fee for each 1,000 times that the malware is downloaded.

There is good money in it, apparently. One website pays $180 for every 1,000 times that malware is downloaded onto a US computer but less for computers elsewhere.

Payments are made via Fethard, Webmoney, wire transfer, E-gold, Western Union, Moneygram, Anelik, Epassporte and PayPal.

Stevens said it was impossible to know how many computers were infected by these companies but put the number in the millions. µ