THERE is a thriving underground market online that most netizens know nothing of - and would be shocked if they got a glimpse of it.
At this global bazaar, at least 69,130 advertisers were detected in one year, offering illicit goods and services that range from stolen credit-card numbers and bank-account details to phishing tools.
The total value of the advertised goods was over US$276 million (S$418 million), according to a study by Internet-security company Symantec, covering the year ending June 30.
Though the buying and selling used to be transacted on Web forums, it is now increasingly done through Internet Relay Chat (IRC), where anonymity is more easily preserved.
A total of 44,321,095 messages were posted on these shadowy forums. Advertisers even used formatting methods like capitalisation and multi-coloured text to capture potential customers' attention.
The most advertised category of goods was credit-card data, which constituted 31 per cent of the total.
Though each card number sold for only 10 US cents each, the data is sold in bulk, with discounts offered on big deals.
The locations of the servers which host this shadowy market change constantly: When servers are shut down, users simply relocate.
The Asia-Pacific/Japan region hosted 12 per cent of the servers used to conduct shadoweconomy discussions on IRC.
Mr Darric Hor, Symantec's general manager for Singapore and Indonesia, noted that as one of the most connected nations, Singapore is at risk from these criminals.
The precautions he suggested include the use of anti-virus software, firewalls and anti- phishing toolbars.
