Jan 23 2009
Chinese hackers eye $400 million market
In the last couple of days we have run a couple of posts on QQ accounts and stealing QQ accounts. Reader harls commented on the “economy of scale” and asked the question, “I wonder how much a million valid QQ numbers are worth?” This was the exact same question I asked myself. So what is the answer?
In 2007, the domestic market for Chinese virtual goods was estimated at $900 million and 45% of that directed at Tencent online products, the owner of QQ. A QQ coin, which has been described as a possible dual-currency for the number of items it can purchase outside of QQ, is priced at 1 yuan (15 cents). In 2007, the going rate for selling a QQ coin was at a discount rate of about .8 yuan. Let’s say that of those million stolen accounts, each one has at least 5 QQ coins.
So the answer: A potential of US $600 thousand (5 million coins X .15 conversion X .8 discount).
These are two great articles I highly recommend on the QQ secondary market and selling methods.
H/T harls who actually made me do the research on this topic.
