Washington: Cybercrimes are no longer the domain of the tech-savvy-just splash out 700 dollars and one can buy an attack kit online, reveals an internet security report.
Buzz up! Symantec, which monitors one-third of the Internet through its software, has discovered a marked increase in sales of crimeware - or attack kits - in the past 12 months.
Attack kits automatically create customised malicious code designed to steal any type of information.
An attack kit, Zeus, can be purchased online for 700 dollars in an underground economy forum.
The kit allows the user to access infected computers and steal email and banking details and passwords.
Last year, it sent out phishing messages to 1.5 million Facebook users and nine million phishing emails.
"The kits have lowered the entry point into cybercrime," Fox News quoted said Symantec vice president and managing director Craig Scroggie as saying.
"They make it easier for an unskilled attacker to compromise a computer and steal information, whereas in the past you needed to have the skill to write these things."
Scroggie said "tens of thousands" of the attack kits had been sold, helping create 90,000 unique variations of the Zeus toolkit.
Other known crimeware tools include the Fragus Exploit Kit and the Spyeye.
ANI
