Black Hat Hackers Barely Make $30,000 per Year

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Cyber-crime doesn't pay (that much), survey finds

The conclusion of a recent joint study conducted by Palo Alto Networks and the Ponemon Institute is that "cyber-crime doesn't pay" and that black hat hackers make up to four times less money in a year compared to their enemies, IT security specialists.

The study is in direct opposition to most of today's black hat hacking myths, which say that the life of cyber-criminals is filled with lots of bountiful paydays.

The study took into account answers from 304 anonymous black hat hackers currently involved with the hacking community and familiar with present-day hacking methods.

Hackers only make a quarter of an IT security specialist's salary

According to the study's respondents, the life of a cyber-criminal isn't what they expected it to be. While their white hat counterparts report salaries in average of $115,770 (€105,948) per year, black hat hackers that answered the survey said they only make $28,744 (€26,305) per year on average.

That's about a quarter of what an IT security expert earns per year, which makes you ask yourself why hackers choose this lifestyle to begin with. With 69% of the black hat hackers saying that they're motivated by money, the study makes you wonder if these hackers can do basic math, or if they have a clue what they could be making working for the other side.

Hacking tools cost around $1,400/hacker

As for why hackers carry out attacks, 72% say that they launch attacks for opportunistic reasons, like the discovery of an accidental security hole or the release of a zero-day.

If things get complicated or the company puts up a fight, 69% of the hackers give up, most of them after the first 40 hours.

53% of the hackers also said that, in recent years, the time and cost needed to plan a cyber-attack have gone down, mentioning the increased number of vulnerabilities discovered in popular products and the decreasing costs of cyber-hacking utilities, which usually require hackers to dish out $1,367 (€1,251) on average.

For more details, The Real Cost of Attacks report is available for download from Palo Alto's website.

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