The plummeting price of stolen personal data

How much is your data worth? You may think that the customer database your business has built is priceless, and individuals probably regard their online data as being rather valuable as well. After all, that’s why we put so much effort into securing it. Unfortunately, the basic economic laws of supply and demand exist within the criminal marketplace just as they do elsewhere. Which means that our perception of value is hugely over-inflated when compared to the reality of the online underground economy. That reality is that as malware production and exploitation has rocketed, and stolen data has flooded the marketplace, so the price has plummeted to pretty unbelievable lows.