Companies aren't cheap, but they aren't exactly expensive either. A couple weeks ago I've registered a company in Estonia – it only cost me the 265 € state fee. Code signing certificate is another what, 500 euro on top of that? Certainly more expensive than a $10 domain with a free certificate, but still could be a reasonable cost for e. g. a targeted attack.

There's another catch – you either have to register a company in your name, or find somebody to own it for you. I don't think the latter would be a big problem though: there was a lot of news about shady fintech startups in the Baltics lately and many of them were in fact registered in the name of random people looking for some quick cash.

Now, if I see something like MicroSoft-Inc OÜ (EE) in the app signature, I would probably get a bit suspicious. But if it's a less known brand? Who knows!

Sure, but once you start registering companies to run your shady schemes, you're in the process of transforming from a bad bad actor to a legitimate bad actor. Stop trying to steal bank credentials, and switch your spyware to pulling things that help to target ads, "optimize for engagement", or "streamline business", and suddenly the entire system starts working for you. You can then work in the clear, and use all the new security tools - like HSTS, DoH, certificate pinning, and code signing - to prevent your victims from protecting themselves from you.

Yeah and now that person who you paid to register it in your name rats you out to the police. Also, there are a lot of laws you can end up breaking with severe penalties in the course of trying to hide your identity for company registration purposes (it enters the world of anti-money laundering).

It's harder than it sounds, which is why malware authors prefer to steal keys than set up fake companies. Hence the new hardware requirements.

> Yeah and now that person who you paid to register it in your name rats you out to the police.

But they don't know who you are, because you're a scammer who is lying to everyone including them.

> Also, there are a lot of laws you can end up breaking with severe penalties in the course of trying to hide your identity for company registration purposes (it enters the world of anti-money laundering).

So is credit card fraud or CFAA violations, which is the thing this is ostensibly to prevent. Criminals don't follow laws.

> It's harder than it sounds, which is why malware authors prefer to steal keys than set up fake companies. Hence the new hardware requirements.

It's not actually that hard, it's just that stealing keys is really easy. And it's not obvious that the new hardware requirements are going to do any good, because that type of consumer hardware has been consistently riddled with vulnerabilities -- Intel essentially gave up on SGX because they couldn't make it work.

So you're going to find these people anonymously, now? How? You'll have to ask a lot of people before someone agrees to actually set up a fake company for you, you'll also have to find ways to pay them without losing your anonymity, and they will have to explain at some point to the tax authority where this unexpected income came from and what the company they've set up actually does.

If it was that easy to hide your tracks police would never catch criminals, but they do. Every time you increase the complexity of the scheme the chance for mistakes goes up.

> that type of consumer hardware has been consistently riddled with vulnerabilities

USB signing devices aren't really consumer hardware, are they? I don't recall vulns in HSMs being a major source of leaks previously, but I'm sure the game will move there sooner or later.

> Intel essentially gave up on SGX because they couldn't make it work

Intel are selling SGX today, have built new features on top of it, it works fine and all their competitors have been investing heavily into catching up.