It's all about the money!

When it comes to hackers we tend to think they’re just creating their exploits for the thrill of it. When we think about Internet scams though, we immediately think (know) profit is the main motive. We read about credit card numbers getting pilfered, identities stolen and bank accounts getting hijacked, but do we ever think about how much the miscreants are actually pulling in for their efforts?

I didn’t have to read far into John E. Dunn’s PCWorld piece, “Web Scam Nets Criminals $10,800 a Day,” to learn that profits from a web scam can easily turn scammer groups into multi-millionaires within a year’s time. The security company Finjan found that criminals didn’t have a hard time scamming Internet users into purchasing bogus anti-virus software even though many warnings have been relayed to the public. In this instance, social engineering again plays a big role. Scammers take advantage of users who are afraid to fall victim to viruses and readily fall for the swindle that promises to remove malware that they don’t even have! Now that Macs are subject to viruses too, they’re not immune either.