Early this year, I warned that there were signs that gangs spreading malware were getting smarter.

The underground economy of data theft and leakage is booming and the perpetrators are one step of regulators. More stolen data is finding its way on to underground economy servers often used by criminals and criminal gangs to sell information like social security numbers, credit cards, personal identification numbers (pins), and e-mail address lists, according to a new Symantec report.

The stolen data is dirt cheap. A card verification number can sell for as little $1, while an identity, including a US bank account, credit card, date of birth and government issued ID number, can go for between US $14 - $18. Obviously there's enough demand for the trade to be lucrative.

The report reinforces the message that the gangs are getting smarter, timing and targeting their attacks a lot better.

Gone are the days when it was usually a case of kids mucking around. There's obviously money to be made from internet crime.

Check, for example, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center annual report.

In 2006, US consumers filed 207,492 complaints about internet crime and reported record losses of $198.4m. Online auction fraud topped the list, accounting for 44.9 per cent of complaints while undelivered merchandise and payments were next in line, accounting for 19 per cent.