SAN FRANCISCO — Fierce competition among identity thieves has driven the prices for stolen data down to bargain-basement levels, which has forced crooks to adopt mainstream business tactics to lure customers, according to a new report on Internet security threats.
Credit card numbers were selling for as little as 40 cents each and access to a bank account was going for $10 in the second half of 2007, according to the latest twice- yearly Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec Corp., released Tuesday.
Symantec detected 711,912 new threats last year. That’s more than five times as many as in 2006, when it found 125,243. It’s almost two-thirds of all 1,122,311 threats that Symantec has cataloged since 2002.
Researchers said they found more evidence during the last six months of the year that Internet fraudsters are adopting mainstream tactics, including hiring teams of hackers to create new viruses and offering volume discounts on stolen data to encourage larger orders.
