Principals of Economics Apply to Stolen Data Markets
Remember supply and demand, substitute goods, and price elasticity? Hackers stealing and selling data do, as evidenced by some findings by Finjan.
Research by Finjan, and reported in InformationWeek, find that credit card numbers that once sold for $100 a piece are now going for $10-$20. Combine that with a drop in value of the US dollar and you wonder how these guys can make a living.
Rather than credit cards, the bad guys are going after high valued business data and trying to bring monopolistic or oligopolistic practices to the market. For example, InformationWorld reports sellers are using encryption
to prevent others from stealing their stolen property. This allows them to limit availability, to auction access off to the highest bidder, and to maintain prices.
Limiting supply works for oil and diamonds, why not for stolen data?
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