FBI Warning

Are you doing online banking or online credit card account access?

The ZeuS botnet (malware) is out to steal your money. 

Zeus (also known as Zbot, PRG, Wsnpoem, Gorhax and Kneber) is a Trojan horse that steals banking information by keystroke logging. Zeus is spread mainly through drive-by downloads and phishing schemes. First identified in July 2007 when it was used to steal information from the United States Department of Transportation, it became more widespread in March 2009. In June 2009, security company Prevx discovered that Zeus had compromised over 74,000 websites of such companies as the Bank of America, NASA, Monster, ABC, Oracle, Cisco, Amazon, and BusinessWeek.

Zeus' current botnet is estimated to include millions of compromised computers (around 3.6 million in the United States).  As of October 28, 2009 Zeus has sent out over 1.5 million phishing messages on Facebook.  From November 14–15 in 2009, Zeus spread via e-mails purporting to be from Verizon Wireless. A total of nine million of these phishing e-mails were sent.

It is still active in 2010. Many anti-virus, anti-malware programs are unable to find or delete this bot.  On July 14, 2010, security firm Trusteer filed a report which says that the credit cards of more than 15 unnamed US banks have been compromised.  On October 1, 2010, FBI announced it had discovered a major international cyber crime network which had used Zeus to hack into US computers and steal around $70m.

How to protect yourself:

1.        Follow ALL of the steps on our “News” page at http://www.byteconnections.net/news.html

2.       Do NOT use a wireless network unless you know it is secure.

3.       When doing online banking, be absolutely sure you have a secure connection (Starbucks and Panera Bread are NOT secure.

4.       With Internet Explorer 8 look for the lock at the top of the page and occasionally click on the lock icon to be sure it is working correctly.  Also look for https rather than http in the address bar.

5.       Per the FBI, when done with your transactions be sure to do ALL of the following:

a.       Log out of your account.

b.      Close Internet Explorer.

c.       Open Internet Explorer.

d.      Select tools (upper right corner).

e.      Internet Options.

f.        Delete button.

g.       Check every box in this window.

h.      Click on delete button.

i.         OK button.

j.        Close Internet Explorer.

If you would like us to do a security analysis for your business or a security presentation please contact us at;

Byte Connections, Inc.

865.470.3133

bc@byteconnections.net