Earlier today, we released the paper Russian Underground 101 which provides readers an overview of the Russian underground economy. The Russian underground is a key source for all sorts of illegal products and services used by criminals, which is ultimately aimed at users all over the world.

By exploring underground resources, (visiting various underground forums) we were able to determine the products and services that are most commonly traded for, as well as the prices of these goods. This provides us with a good insight into the Russian underground ecosystem, information which can be used to provide enhanced protection for Trend Micro customers.

A wide variety of goods and services are sold in the Russian underground economy. These include exploit kits (which can cost several thousand dollars for well-known, effective kits), “bullet-proof” web hosting, VPN services, and custom-created malware. Business aspects of the underground (such as the pay-per-install service model), are also included.

For full details, you can follow the following link to download the paper in full: http://www.trendmicro.com/cloud-content/us/pdfs/security-intelligence/white-papers/wp-russian-underground-101.pdf