THE CYBER BLACK MARKET

POL 370F

PROF.BENJAMIN BARTLETT

MIAMIUNIVERSITY

OVERVIEW

1. What is the cyber black market?
2. Whoparticipates in the cyber black market?
3. Howdoesthecyber black market lead to betterand cheaper cyber weapons?

WHAT IS THE CYBER BLACK MARKET?

• Place to buy/sell stolen information, such as credit cardnumbers, user ids and passwords, etc.
• Butcanalsobuy/sell exploits, payloads, malware, or end-to-end services.
• Overlapswithourearlierdiscussionofcyberproxies.

WHO PARTICIPATES?

1. Technical experts (find vulnerabilities, design exploits,create payloads, etc.)–most sophisticated.
2. Vendors/brokers (botnet owners, bulletproof hosting,spamming services, financial data providers, etc.).
3. Buyers–least sophisticated.

THEMARKETLEADSTOBETTER & CHEAPER CYBERWEAPONS THROUGH TWO MECHANISMS

1. The “cybercrime value chain”.
• Leadstospecialization.
2. Competition.

THECYBERCRIME VALUECHAIN

• In a normal market, you often have one firm designing aproduct, other firms making components for that product,and yetanother firm assembling the product.
• Inthecyber black market, we see a similar phenomenon
• For example: can buyanexploitandapayloadfromseparate vendors, then combinethemintomalware.

SPECIALIZATION

• Because you can buy different components/services fromdifferent technical experts or vendors, they can specialize.
• So,onehackergroupmayspecializeinfinding zero dayvulnerabilities, another in building exploits, another in payloadsaimed at IoT devices, etc.
• Thismeanstheycanbecomereallygoodatthatonething.

COMPETITION

• Likefirms, the technical experts and vendors compete witheach other to sell their products and services.
• This means they want to have the best products/services atthe best prices.
• This pushes them to innovate.

CONSEQUENCE: BETTER & CHEAPER CYBERWEAPONS

• This specialization and innovation, along with marketpressures to keep prices low, mean that cyber weaponsare better and more cheaply available than theyotherwise would be.
• Also,becauseyoucanassemblemalwarefromcomponentparts, there is a much larger variety of malware.

CONCLUSION

• Thecyber black market is a place to buy or sell both the productsof cybercrime and the tools for cybercrime.
• The cyber black market has three types of participants: technicalexperts, vendors/brokers, and buyers.
• Thespecialization and competition created by the cyber blackmarket leads to better & cheaper cyber weapons.