Long ago, the term “goods” referred to necessities like wheat, milk, sugar, and petroleum, but our necessities have changed.  Now “goods” can refer to broad band or smartphones or computers or–cybercrime?

As seen in the RSA’s report about the Current State of Cybercrime, experts confirm what we already know: malware and the tools cybercriminals use are evolving. Although malware comes from different places, they have identical capabilities and continue to procreate.  The amount of stolen information continues to grow, and cybercriminals are capitalizing on it. The stolen information acquired by cybercriminals has joined the other goods available in our competitive market.

The internet and its on-growing innovations keep us adapting.  Next time you buy gourmet-pasta-on-a-Tuesday-and-eat-it-on-a-Wednesday, remember that cybercriminals could be capitalizing on the private information you divulge for such”conveniences”. While you are checking your email, they may be stealing and selling your log-in information for your email accounts, social media sites, and favorite online shops. Even very detailed information like medical histories from hospital patients are highly demanded and can be bought online, in bulk.

Every kind of personal information is online and has diverse buyers and sellers

But cybercriminals aren’t stooping to the deep-dark-web anymore, now they use public and open communication channels, like social media sites, for these illegal sales transactions. In fact, results from the six-month long study show that the RSA discovered more than 500 groups dedicated to fraud on social media, with an estimated 220,000 total members, and more than 60% (133,000 members), found each other on Facebook.

Financial information circulates within these online communities, including credit card information with access codes and authorization numbers, tutorials for how to perform a cyberattack, malware tools, and even zoomed-in conversations that teach users how to move money without being detected.

It is important for businesses to set aside sufficient resources to detect threats, attacks and frauds that now exist on multiple channels  (Windows, Android, iOS, Mac, etc.). Since the variants can multiply and tailor themselves to the malware,  prevention and protection efforts should also increase.