According to Eweek, hackers are now attempting to sell an unconfirmed zero day exploit to the tune of $50,000 big ones. The Windows Vista exploit-which has not been independently verified-was just one of many zero-days available for sale at an auction-style marketplace infiltrated by the Tokyo-based anti-virus vendor.

In an interview with eWEEK, Trend Micro's chief technology officer, Raimund Genes, said prices for exploits for unpatched code execution flaws are in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, depending on the popularity of the software and the reliability of the attack code. Bots and Trojan downloaders that typically hijack Windows machines for use in spam-spewing botnets were being sold for about $5,000, Genes said.

Genes said the average prices for credit card and bank log-in data can vary dramatically, depending on the bank's brand and the way the data is mapped to names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and physical addresses. A custom Trojan capable of stealing online account information can be bought for between $1,000 and $5,000, while a botnet-building piece of malware can cost between $5,000 and $20,000, Genes said.