Cyberattacks on Americantargets are an emerging national-security threat and anissue for US foreign policy.But for all the dangers of state-backed, politically motivated hacking, profit-motivated cybercriminalsare a more frequent and perhaps muchgreater hazard for the majority ofpeople.North Korea may be able to hobblea major movie studio, and the Chinese government has frequentlystolen information on US defense hardware. Butindividuals are much softer targets than governments or major corporations. And every individual has access to informationranging from medical data to bank-account numbers to online passwords to basic biographical informationoff whichenterprising hackers canprofit.Flashpoint, a private intelligence firm that researches online criminal networks, released Thursdayits annual report on "highlights and trends in the deep and dark web."The report, which was provided toBusiness Insider, gives a sense of how online criminality evolved in 2015. The firm, which providesproprietary intelligence on dark-web activity, gatheredsome jarring data aboutthe ease and apparent banalityof contemporary online criminal enterprises. For example, Flashpoint found one online marketplace on whichcybercriminalswere selling hackingvictims' birth dates for as little as $3, for use in verifying fraudulent Google Wallet accounts.The Flashpoint reportportrays an online criminal community that's becoming increasingly transnational. And withthe help of growing foreign connections, dark web usersin a country that's been at theforefront of politically motivated hacking are starting to make a splash on the criminal scene as well.Flashpoint's experts have "observed increasing signs indicating the maturingand internationalizationof the Chinese cybercrime underground," the report said.As the report explained, Chinese cyber criminals havetypicallytransacted throughon "one-on-one engagements negotiated via private messages or instant messenger applications."But overthe past year, they've shown signs of moving on to web forumsand established networks that don't depend on this degree of personal contact. And, according to Flashpoint, these forums are usually "within the Russian underground."Russia is considered to be the global leader in for-profit hacking, with Russian cyber crime representing an estimated $2 billion industry in 2014, according to"Flashpoint has noted an uptick in Chinese-speaking actors operating on international, yet Russian-run, cybercrime forums such as Lampeduza, Crdclub, and Infraud," the report said.Chinese cybercriminals also appear to be learning fromthe example of Russian-based networks and establishing web forumswithin China, for specific use by Chinese cybercriminals."Taking a page from the Russian model, some Chinese cybercriminals have established native Chinese communities or shops of their own," the report noted.Thoughthese networks' users are typically limitedto China, they include two sizableonline shops dedicated to trading in stolen personal information and facilitating illicit purchases.The fact that Chinese for-profit hackers are becoming more like Russia's in their behavior and practices has some alarming implications. China has a population of over 1.3billion, some 649 million of whom are web usersmaking for a sizable pool of current and future cybercriminals. As it is,China is already one of the world's most prolific and dangerous hacking nations.At the same time, Russian dark web networks are a partial reflectionof the country's existing criminal culture, which exists in a context of widespread official corruption and close ties between organized crime and the state. The environment for enterprising cyber criminals isn't quite as friendly in China, a more thoroughly oppressive state with strict web controls and a leader in President Xi Jinping, who'smade a far-reaching anti-corruption pushone of his top priorities. Xi also made a point of meeting with Silicon Valley tech-industryleadersduring a September 2015trip to the US, a sign of how highly Beijing values some of its business relationships in theUS. Giving a free reign to cybercriminals as Russia arguably haswould go against a number of Xi's apparent priorities.As the Flashpoint report said: "So-called 'internet purification operations'conducted by the Chinese authorities ...will limit the growth of native sites."SEE ALSO:Here's the latest sign that investors are anxious about Saudi ArabiaJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: The US Navy has launched its new 387-foot combat warship
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