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What is Crimeware

Crimeware is an umbrella term for all malicious software programs, whose purpose is to facilitate and automate illegal activities on the Internet. Criminal software can be a virus, spyware or any malicious software that can be used to commit crimes, such as:

• theft of personal data (names, identification numbers, etc.);
• theft of financial information (bank card numbers);
• theft of trade secrets or confidential information for sale or blackmail/extortion;
• Theft of contact lists and email addresses for further transfer or sale;

The above actions are usually made in order to bring some financial benefit to the distributor of criminal software, rather than just to bring inconvenience to users in the form of a joke.

Criminal Software as a Service (Crimeware as a Service or CaaS)

With cloud computing becoming widespread, the phrase "something as a service" has become common indeed. Offers such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) allow organizations to use specialized functions without responsibility for maintaining and protecting the infrastructure. This gives a plethora of advantages and makes it easierfor a business to scale and focus on the main business areas, by outsourcing infrastructure maintenance tasks outside of the central business model.

Unfortunately, this model was adopted by cybercrime, so such offers 'as a service' began to appear. Traditionally, a cybercriminal had to have deep computer knowledge and be a jack of all trades. Crimeware as a Service allows you to specialize in a specific narrow area, renting the necessary services from other cybercriminals as necessary. Crimeware as a Service has become an important component of the underground economy. CaaS takes cybercrime to the next level, making it more organized, automated, and accessible to criminals with limited technical skills.

One of the most common types of criminal software is a phishing kit, which is a set of convenient tools that allow people with minimal technical skills to launch phishing sites. Typically, such a kit includes website development software (including graphic files, content) that can be used to create compelling simulations of authorized sites, and spamming software (to automate the mass mailing process).