Blackhatonomics

Foreword

Would you be surprised if I say that the essence of cyber-crime comes down to traditional theft of property—be that of funds in accounts, of company data (and the financial harm that can cause), or of personal/confidential information (and the damage that can cause by it winding up in the wrong hands)? As time goes by, hackers, virus writers and other cyber-criminals are gaining more and more experience and thereby increasing their sophistication, highlighted by their employing dirty tricks in their illegal endeavors (for example, using legal digital certificates in malware). Obviously, corresponding defenses need to increase in sophistication too. To do that we need to get into the minds of cyber-criminals to understand their motives ...