One man's journey to earning over $100,000 from cybercrime
Researchers at security vendor Check Point have revealed the identity and activities of a hacker whose seven-year career in cybercrime has earned him at least $100,000, and probably much more.
He's single, 25-years-old and living in Benin City, Southern Nigeria. His cybercrime activities have earned him, on average, at least 14 times the national minimum wage in Nigeria and three times the average professional salary in Nigeria every year since 2013.
Known as 'Dton' to his friends, his alter ego is 'Bill Henry', a career cyber-criminal who buys goods with stolen credit cards and launches phishing and malware attacks.
Bill's crime career started by spending around $13,000 buying the details of 1000 credit cards from a special online marketplace specializing in stolen payment card credentials. With each stolen card -- costing around $4 to $16 each -- Bill usually tried to charge about 200,000 Nigerian Naira (NAN), equivalent to around $550 US. If the transaction is blocked, he tries another merchant, or another card until one succeeds. From his 'investment' in the 1000 stolen cards he has been able to charge at least $100,000.
He moved on from this to mass-mailing malware to lists of email addresses purchased from online criminal marketplaces. These activities harvested more user credentials that he could exploit. Bill then went on to hire someone called 'RATs &exploits' to develop malware for him.
Bill also got involved with someone else behind a specialized malware packer program, but fell out and argued with him on underground forums over prices and usage. Ultimately when Bill/Dton didn't get what he wanted, he reported the other party to Interpol -- so much for honor among thieves.
Dton's journey is a salutary lesson in how a relatively unskilled and undisciplined individual can profit from fraud and malicious online activity. Cybercrime is, quite simply, a numbers game, when you can target hundreds of thousands of people at a time, you only need to infect a handful to get hold of your ill-gotten gains.
You can read more about Bill/Dton's activities on the Check Point blog.
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