Cyber thieves using online ads to recruit

Two companies that are hiring - at least on a contractor basis - advertise online, said Kevin Stevens, a threat intelligence analyst for SecureWorks, who presented findings on the organizations at the Black Hat cyber security conference outside Washington.

They are reportedly looking for people who are willing to take malicious code they provide and link it to something that people will click on, for instance a picture of a celebrity getting out of her car or at a holiday resort. These people then collect a fee for each 1,000 times that the malware is downloaded.

One site, for example, pays US$180 for each 1,000 times that malware is downloaded onto a U.S. computer but less for computers elsewhere. It refuses to pay for any downloads to Russian computers, causing Stevens and others to strongly suspect that it, like other similar sites, are based in Russia.

"We pay your wages via the following systems: Fethard, WebMoney, Wire, e-gold, Western Union (WU), MoneyGram, Anelik and ePassporte, and PayPal," the site said.

The cybercrime problem has worsen over the past three years as consumers and companies alike increasingly expose valuable data such as business plans, credit card numbers, banking information and Social Security numbers on the Internet. The rise of social networks and internet commerce don't make things any easier either.

"There are hundreds of billions of dollars that traverse the Internet," Shawn Henry, assistant director for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Division, said late last year. "It's (the problem) absolutely gotten bigger, yes, absolutely."