ICSI in MIT Technology Review
“Most Malware Tied to ‘Pay-Per-Install’ Market”
June 9, 2011 | Brian Krebs, MIT Technology Review
excerpt:
New research suggests that the majority of personal computers infected with malicious software may have arrived at that state thanks to a bustling underground market that matches criminal gangs who pay for malware installations with enterprising hackers looking to sell access to compromised PCs. Pay-per-install (PPI) services are advertised on shadowy underground Web forums. Clients submit their malware—a spambot, fake antivirus software, or password-stealing Trojan—to the PPI service, which in turn charges rates from $7 to $180 per thousand successful installations, depending on the requested geographic location of the desired victims.
article-date:
Thursday, June 9, 2011
recap:
Researchers have found that the majority of the most active malware distributors pay third parties to install their malicious software on at least some of the computers they infect.