New Trojan Balances Your Checkbook

"New malware being used by cybercrooks does more than let hackers loot a bank account; it hides evidence of a victim’s dwindling balance by rewriting online bank statements on the fly, according to a new report.

"The sophisticated hack uses a Trojan horse program installed on the victim’s machine that alters html coding before it’s displayed in the user’s browser, to either erase evidence of a money transfer transaction entirely from a bank statement, or alter the amount of money transfers and balances.

"The ruse buys the crooks time before a victim discovers the fraud, though won’t work if a victim uses an uninfected machine to check his or her bank balance.

"The novel technique was employed in August by a gang who targeted customers of leading German banks and stole Euro 300,000 in three weeks, according to Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of computer security firm Finjan."

More at Wired...

Banking Trojans Outrun Anti-Virus

"The ease of online banking is putting more Internet hackers on easy street.

"A report Monday in USA Today indicated the number of programs designed to gain access to bank accounts had increased from almost 17,000 in January 2008 to more than 59,000 by the end of the year...

"The latest advances in Internet bank theft include the use of trojan programs that can slip onto an unsuspecting computer's hard drive through a viral link on a greeting card or in e-mail spam.

"The trojan then hides out on the hard drive and waits until the computer user logs onto a banking Web site. The program then acquires user names and passwords or copies the log-on page.

"One Internet security expert says banking trojans are more advanced and evolving faster than anti-virus solutions."

Read more at the Topeka Capital-Journal...

Conficker 2.0 Debuts

"The criminals behind the widespread Conficker worm have released a new version of the malware that could signal a major shift in the way the worm operates.

"The new variant, dubbed Conficker B++, was spotted three days ago by SRI International researchers, who published details of the new code on Thursday. To the untrained eye, the new variant looks almost identical to the previous version of the worm, Conficker B. But the B++ variant uses new techniques to download software, giving its creators more flexibility in what they can do with infected machines..."

Read more at ComputerWorld...

Trojan Knocks Out School Computers

"A nasty virus has been going around the Mounds View public schools, but the only thing it's infecting is computers.

"This particular virus effectively shuts a computer down and renders it useless. Officials say about 3,500 computers in the Mounds View school district have been infected...

"The district is now in the process of erasing the hard drives, and reinstalling the operating system and software on every computer. A 12-person team has been working up to 15-hour days to fix the problems."

Source: Star Tribune...