Maybe Identity Theft doesn't pay after all

Apparently commoditization and competition in the identity theft business is hurting criminal's profits, according to this report:

Yahoo!: Hackers sell fake credit cards for one dollar: study
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hackers are selling fake US-based credit cards on the Internet for as little as one dollar, and a full set of data for a fake identity for as low as 14 dollars, a study by a Web security firm said Monday.
A semi-annual report by California-based Symantec found threats in cyberspace are growing, particularly in the area of data theft and "targeted malicious code for the purpose of stealing confidential information that can be used for financial gain."

...

Symantec said it tracked for the first time the trade of stolen confidential information and captured data being sold on "underground" servers.
These are networks used by hackers and shadowy criminal organizations to sell stolen information, including social security numbers, credit cards, personal identification numbers (PINs), and e-mail address lists.
Some 51 percent of all these servers in the world were located in the United States.
On the networks, US-based credit cards with a verification number were available for between one and six dollars while an identity, including a US bank account, credit card, date of birth and government issued identification number, was available for between 14 and 18 dollars, Symantec said.
Symantec estimated that 4,943 bank cards were sold over these networks in the last six months of 2006, mostly from US-based banks.
Also being sold on the networks: Online bank accounts with a 9,900-dollar balance for 300 dollars; PayPal accounts for 10 to 500 dollars and a list of 2,900 e-mail addresses for three dollars.

Reading this, the first thing I thought was "Man, the competition must be fierce to drive the margin spreads down like that." I'm sure that there's old data crooks sitting in a pub somewhere, complaining about how business isn't like the good old days.

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