Cashable on the dark web, malware as a service is a platform that allows you to create a computer infection even without being an expert
That the world of computer security was tied with a double thread to multi-million dollar economic interests is certainly not news. The latest trend in the sector, however, allows for an even better understanding of what the prospects (or drifts, depending on how you look at the phenomenon) are for the coming months and years.
More and more hackers – black hat hackers, “bad” hackers, in this case – are being found reselling viruses, trojans and other types of malware (in addition to botnets, of course) on the dark web. It’s in cases like these that we talk about malware as a service (literally “malware as a service”, abbreviated as maas): whoever creates the viruses doesn’t use them personally to infect this or that computer, but puts them on sale and sells them to the highest bidder, without worrying about what he does with them and what the possible consequences are. In short, a sort of movement for the “democratization” of malware, with very harmful consequences for Internet users all over the world.
What is malware as a service
Considered as a branch (very extreme, perhaps) of software as a service, maas treats malware and viruses like any other web service and therefore sellable and monetizable. This allows anyone to have access to very dangerous tools without (necessarily) having the knowledge and skills to manage them properly: to start a ransomware campaign, just to make a recent example, it will be enough to buy the virus on the dark web and find a way to spread it.
How malware as a service works
In fact, when we talk about malware as a service we talk about a software platform that allows a user to “compose” a virus infection to be spread on the web. In short, it is as if you were buying a sort of assembly kit that, with instructions, allows you to build your own malware. It is not necessary, therefore, to have great computer skills or know one or more programming languages inside out: all you need is a bit of good will and the ability to follow the instructions attached to the “package” you have purchased.