Lusthaus: Cybercrime vendors absorb risk by keeping fixed online brands
Jonathan Lusthaus · a16z Podcast | The Business of Cybercrime · Feb 26, 2019 · at 27:16
Jonathan Lusthaus explains how risk is divided between malware developers and front-end marketplace vendors in underground digital economies.
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“But on the other extreme, you get certain cyber criminals who will change their names very regularly. So you might see this particularly around very high level Russian speaking malware coders. So people who are really the top layer of the industry Obviously, I think they're relatively cautious, and they're doing this as a strategic move, but they don't need to deal with that many people in terms of the business that they run. What they need to do is code really good malware that then can be sold. And so, the problem becomes more for someone who's, say, the vendor of this particular product. So, those people on particular marketplaces, they actually need to hold the brand. They need to hold a nickname for long periods of time, because they're the ones that you know you buy that product from. And so what they're doing, this particular person who's the vendor, is basically by agreeing to sell this malware, they're taking on the risk, right?”
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