A hacked Twitter account may cost as much as $1,000

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab report that hacked accounts of Twitter and other services are being sold online for hundreds of dollars.

Big revenues made on stolen data make hacking programs and viruses very popular among cyber criminals. According to Kaspersky Researcher Dmitry Bestuzhev there were Gmail accounts for sale on Russian hacker forums, (asking price 2,500 roubles, or $82) RapidShare accounts going for $5 per month, as well as Skype, instant messaging and Facebook credentials on the underground forums.

The prices depend on the name of the account and the number of followers. However, the main focus of the attackers is an initial, trusted, stepping stone from which to send malicious Twitter messages and, ideally, infect more machines.

Bestuzhev said that one Twitter account, with just over 320 followers, was offered at $1,000 in an underground hacker forum. The user's name was a simple three letter combination that Bestuzhev thought might make it more valuable to criminals. Compare that to an MSN account, which Bestuzhev has seen priced at €1 ($1.40). "The price for Twitter accounts is really high," he said.