How the Malware Marketplace Works

For a few hundred bucks, you can buy custom-built bot software, complete with tech support. The malware is guaranteed to evade antivirus programs and turn the unlucky computers it lands on into zombies ready to respond to your every command.

MPack will set you back a cool grand, but it's a powerful software tool that'll load up a Web site with exploits that can take over a browser and force it to download malware.

For $10 a month, buy your bot a home and a URL with hosting providers in China, Russia, and elsewhere who turn a deaf ear to complaints about the vicious malware hosted on their servers.

How do you entice people to visit your malware-loaded site? For $150, spammers will distribute a million "Click this link for naked Lindsay Lohan pics!" e-mail messages, complete with your site's URL.

Now you're ready to begin making money! You have infected 10,000 victims and have a botnet of your own. You can sell its spam-spewing services at any number of black-market service sites, or offer it for devastating denial-of-service attacks against targets of your customers' choosing.