Even the hackers are nervous: "

The people who know best say it's not safe out there on the Internet.

In a series of talks at the Chaos Communication Camp here in Germany today, researchers and virus experts outlined the recent growth in the numbers of viruses and Trojans (up 34 percent since the same time last year), the evolving sophistication of attacks, and – perhaps most strikingly – the increasing professionalism of the malware business.

There's big money to be made by breaking into other computers these days, and digital mafias have long since stepped into the gap, replacing slipshod and amateur work with professional-grade coding. According to McAfee Avert Labs researcher Toralv Dirro, harvested credit card numbers are sold in batches of a thousand, for between $1 and $6 dollars for a U.S. card, or twice that for a British card. [ Read more ... ]