The job market for hackers
Kaspersky Lab experts studied 200,000 job postings on the dark web and found that cybercrime is using similar techniques to legal businesses when hiring new employees.
Everything is like people
Cyber hacker groups are becoming more like traditional businesses and are promising high salaries, paid time off, and sick days to attract IT professionals. Kaspersky Lab report shows that job ads on dark web forums offer salaries of $15,000 to $20,000 per month.
Between March 2020 and June 2022, Kaspersky Lab analyzed 200,000 job ads on 155 dark web sites. Most ads are looking for professional software developers, making up 61% of the total ads.
The highest salary offered was $20,000, and the top pay for cyberattack specialists (16% of ads) was $15,000. On average, salaries range from $1,300 to $4,000.
According to the data provided by Kaspersky Lab, designers (10%) are the third most in-demand profession after developers and direct attackers. Following are administrators (6%), reverse engineering specialists (4%), analysts (2%), and testers (1%). Designers are paid the least, while developers are promised the most.
One third of ads offer full-time employment, as well as flexible schedules. Paid time off and sick leave are only promised in 8% of cases, indicating that cybercrime recognizes the importance of valuable personnel.
The risks outweigh the benefits
According to Kaspersky Lab, the conditions offered by cybergroups may be competitive with legal businesses, making them attractive for IT professionals who are unemployed or recent university graduates.
However, the risks outweigh the benefits since there are no legally formalized contracts, and an IT specialist with a criminal background may struggle to find legal employment later.
The highest number of cybercrime job ads on underground forums was seen in the first quarter of the 2020 pandemic, during which the legitimate IT market was undergoing significant changes.
Another surge occurred at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022.
Kaspersky Lab mentioned that applicants may be asked to complete a test task to demonstrate their skills, such as encrypting a malicious DLL file within a day to evade antiviruses. In some cases, applicants are offered payment in bitcoins (up to $300) for such tasks.
Employers may review the applicant's portfolio, but their actual skills remain the most important factor.
