Cybercriminal Underground

Trend Micro's first look into the cybercriminal underground covers the different activities and services found in the Russian underground—the pioneer underground scene—in 2012.

This Trend Micro research looks into the emergence of the “mobile underground” in China as a result of the market's shift to mobile platforms, including mobile underground products and services.

This research paper reviews messages related to activities, along with trends observed and product and service price updates seen in the Chinese underground market throughout 2013.

Different cybercriminal underground markets offer a distinct list of tools and services. Here's a list of known products and services that are available in the Chinese, Russian, and Brazilian underground.

According to the FBI, in the two and a half years of Silk Road’s existence, the site has generated sales totaling over 9.5 million Bitcoins and collected commissions on those sales of over 600,000 Bitcoins. Read more about Deep Web marketplaces here.

Over several months, our researchers monitored the Chinese mobile cybercriminal underground to see what kind of wares cybercriminals were trading. What they found was a diverse set of offerings created to suit different purposes.

A Russian cybercrime ring known to have been running underground operations since 2004 allegedly stole 1.2 billion Internet usernames and passwords from 420,000 websites, including Fortune 500 companies.

These virtual black markets mostly thrive in forums or chat rooms where numerous cybercriminals act as anonymous businessmen who trade goods and services to make profit. And much like typical businessmen, they adhere to specific business models.

Established back in 2004, the Russian underground market was the first to offer crimeware to cybercriminals. Up to this day, it continues to thrive and evolve despite the evident drop in market prices.