Cyber policing units have had such success in forcing online criminals to co-operate with their investigations through the threat of long prison sentences that they have managed to create an army of informants deep inside the hacking community.
In some cases, popular illegal forums used by cyber criminals as marketplaces for stolen identities and credit card numbers have been run by hacker turncoats acting as FBI moles. In others, undercover FBI agents posing as "carders" – hackers specialising in ID theft – have themselves taken over the management of crime forums, using the intelligence gathered to put dozens of people behind bars.
One in four US hackers an FBI informant?
Posted on Tuesday, June 07 2011 @ 22:48 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Guardian reports one in four US hackers have been recruited by federal authorities to secretly inform on their peers: