Russian cyber-criminals have set up a compromised website clearinghouse of sorts that has approximately 6000 websites cataloged for sale; some of the sites offered are indexed by Google and will only cost the bargain hunting criminal $0.05 - $10.00. Once paid, this price will get you an administrator account or shell access to the hacked site. ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ That price is cheap considering the fact that once in the command of someone nefarious the returns can be in the millions. The Hacker News says that once in a criminal's control the site will be set up to distribute malware, install a botnet command & control infrastructure, upload illegal content, send spam, and so on. They go on to say that this Russian one is a little bit of a deviation to how criminals usually operate as most under ground sites actually offer access to networks of compromised machines or stolen credit card information rather than the components to facilitate the network itself. The criminals running this 'store' have exploited the most basic vulnerabilities with a more than likely basic toolset. This is a good example of can happen to a website that is not properly protected, or has a relatively week password. 03.08.2013 http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/hacked_websites_for_sale_at_russian_underground_store.html http://thehackernews.com/2013/08/russian-hackers-underground-hacking-websites.html