Spyware Warrior

[mikey]

Script Kiddies Killing The Margins In Online Extortion

Over the past few years, we've been seeing more and more stories about online extortion scams. Some involve the threat of taking down websites with a denial of service attack if no payment is made, but increasingly common is the trojan-as-extortion trick. The scammer somehow tricks the victim into installing a trojan horse that then threatens to delete or lockup files... unless a payment is made. However, in the past, that payment has been on the order of $50 or $100 or so. However, it appears that as more script kiddies get access to the tools to do similar things, the price is going down. These days, it looks like the going price may be only $10.99 to keep your files safe. Who knew that extortion prices were subject to market pressures brought on by an increase in supply? Yes, this is a joke, but the next time you get one of these trojans demanding $50, be sure to tell the scammer that it's way over the market price.

Ref; http://techdirt.com/articles/20060427/1258251.shtml
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