Coffins in the Mail Are a Trick of the Cybercrime Trade

There's never been a better time to get involved in cybercrime.

That's the tongue-in-cheek assessment of Uri Rivner, RSA's head of new technologies for identity protection and verification, who gave a presentation at the RSA security conference in London on Wednesday.

But there is truth in his quip -- the poor economy is driving people to find other work and it has become much easier for cybercriminals to recruit people, known as "mules," to carry out crucial duties for scams.

Seduced by promises of extremely high weekly pay while working only a few hours, people agree to do tasks such as reship goods or allow their bank accounts to receive funds for transfers elsewhere.

The problem is, the goods are stolen, and their addresses are being used as drops, allowing the cybercriminals the luxury of not receiving the stolen goods directly that have been bought with stolen credit card data. Mules are also duped into allowing money to be transferred into their own bank accounts and then ordered to transfer the money elsewhere, a type of money laundering.

PC World