How much money can a "shameless" hacker make in 2015?

I won’t say any more. I’m going to move bricks.

The so-called black hat hackers are hackers who regard moral integrity as a passerby and do anything to make money.

They are often in the black or gray industries, and most of their activities are "businesses" that are on the edge of the law or simply illegal, such as stealing information, fraud, and cyber attacks. Due to the "special nature" of their profession, they need to hide their identities and be on guard against fire, theft, and police. Unless they confess voluntarily, no one will know that they are "doing this." The income status of this group is even more secret, with only some sporadic legends.

Selling your moral integrity must earn you much more than selling your chastity.

I guess this is what most people think.

How much do unscrupulous hackers earn?

In order to find out the truth, well-known security companies Palo Alto and Ponemon sent questionnaires to some black hat hackers in the United States and Europe to find out their income in 2015. And they actually received serious responses from 304 hackers...

The results are shocking: the average annual income of a black hat hacker is only $28,744, which is only a quarter of their counterparts, white hat hackers (researchers working for security companies).

What? Robbers don't make as much as policemen? If you are so unpromising, how dare you go home for the New Year?

The Economics of Hacking

Do hackers earn so little to do charity? The survey shows: Not really. Hackers basically enter this industry for the money, but once they enter this circle, they find that their ambitions are high as the sky, but their lives are thin as paper.

Based on the data "confessed" by the hackers, we can do some calculations:

For each attack, hackers need to spend $1,367 to prepare tools.

A hacker can complete 8 attacks in a year.

Only 42% of these attacks were successful.

Only 59% of successful attacks can make money.

The average profit from a profitable attack is $14,711

With this calculation, hackers have thrown away their moral integrity and can only earn less than 30,000 US dollars a year. As citizens of the United States, how can they say hello to others with such a small amount of money? No wonder they dare not admit that they are hackers. Fortunately, these incomes do not need to be taxed, otherwise it would be like rubbing salt in the wound.

In fact, black hat hackers are not that miserable.

Don't rush to raise funds for them, these hackers may just be pretending to be pitiful.

The survey also revealed several important data:

1. Hackers spend an average of 705 hours working per year.

This means that they only work less than 2 hours a day. They earn less, but they spend the time that others use to work on drinking, games, and picking up girls. If they are willing to work hard, for example, work 8 hours a day, the money they earn will surpass that of serious security researchers in a minute.

2. Hackers' attack tools are becoming cheaper.

Although the average cost of an attack in 2015 was $1,367, 84% of hackers said that the price of tools is rapidly decreasing, and 63% of hackers believe that the effectiveness of new tools is increasing. It seems that Moore's Law also applies to the hacker community, which means that their attack costs will be further reduced in 2016, thus making more money.

3. The time required for attack is getting shorter and shorter.

Hackers happily admit that as more new products are launched, more vulnerabilities are emerging. In addition, their skills are becoming more sophisticated, tools are becoming more powerful, and exchanges between peers are becoming more frequent, and the time required for attacks is getting shorter and shorter. In this way, they can definitely do more in 2016.

Judging from the age of the respondents, hackers aged 18-40 make up the majority; what is gratifying is that there are also 9% of 51-60 year-old comrades fighting on the front line of hacking. It seems that hacking other people's servers is indeed more exciting than taking care of grandchildren or practicing Tai Chi.

[Black hat hacker age composition chart]

Although it seems that the black hat hacker profession is becoming more and more popular, in fact, this industry is not a joke. Compared with the ordinary income, the legal risks that hackers bear are extremely high.

How much can black hat hackers in China earn?

In fact, this survey has many bugs.

The researcher sent out more than 10,000 questionnaires through hacker communities and friends, but only received 3% responses. Such a low response rate shows a problem: hackers who are busy making big money, do they have time to reply to your questionnaire? Even if these 3% of people fully represent the majority of hackers, who can guarantee that the data they fill out is true? Don't forget that hackers are the most cunning group of people in the world. In order to prevent other hackers from stealing their jobs, it is possible that they fill in their own income a little lower.

In addition, just looking at the interviewees, how could we miss the Chinese hackers who are enjoying the booming Internet boom?

According to many insiders familiar with black hat hackers, although China's black industry is not as profitable as rumored, it still brings in considerable income, at least more than the figures in the questionnaire. However, being a black hat hacker is not a cost-effective business after all.

The famous white hat hacker Daishen (Wang Yingjian) did some calculations for Leifeng.com:

If you do hacking or other illegal activities, you can earn about 1 million yuan a year. But you will probably go to jail if you do this. If you are sentenced to 5 years, you will have no income for 5 years. The average annual income is 200,000 yuan. Currently, network security is so popular that hackers with a certain level can also earn 200,000 yuan a year working in security companies. You can earn the same amount of money, one with a clear conscience and the other with extremely high risks, so why choose to do illegal activities?

So you see, even if you abandon your moral integrity, life still doesn't get better. Life is hard, so you should go back to working as a bricklayer.

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