The thing that's scary is how easy it is for these people to get away with what they're doing. I wonder how much money is lost every year and how many hackers you never hear about going to jail for this stuff. I'm pretty sure this is the motivation to do a lot of this stuff. The risk/reward level is completely slanted.

I see a LOT of stories on HN and other Tech sites about these kinds of attacks. Unfortunately, I rarely, if ever, hear about hackers getting arrested for this sort of activity.