The Russian underground economy has democratized cybercrime

If you want to buy a botnet, it'll cost you somewhere in the region of $700. If you just want to hire someone else's for an hour, though, it can cost as little as $2—that's long enough to take down, say, a call center, if that's what you were in the mood for. Maybe you'd like to spy on an ex—for $350 you can purchase a trojan that lets you see all their incoming and outgoing texts. Or maybe you're just in the market for some good, old-fashioned spamming—it'll only cost you $10 for a million e-mails. That's the hourly minimum wage in the UK.

This is the current state of Russia's underground market in cybercrime—a vibrant community of ne'er-do-wells offering every conceivable kind of method for compromising computer security. It's been profiled in security firm Trend Micro's report, Russian Underground 101, and its findings are as fascinating as they are alarming. It's an insight into the workings of an entirely hidden economy, but also one that's pretty scary. Some of these things are really, really cheap.