Next gen bank Trojan rewrites bank statements

The Register ^

[Gomez]

Black hat hackers have created a new strain of Trojan that rewrites online bank statements to disguise fraud.

Victims of the URLZone Trojan would only realise their bank account has been looted after they check their balance with a bank branch or via an ATM.

Cybercriminals distribute the malware by booby-trapping websites (many of them legitimate) using the LuckySpoilt toolkit. Malicious pdf files or JavaScripts are used to push the URLZone Trojan onto the vulnerable Windows boxes of visiting surfers.

The malware features a keystroke logger that captures bank login credentials and takes screenshots of activities on bank accounts, each of which were forwarded to a command and control server hosted in the Ukraine.

The Trojan agent gets instructions of how much to take from compromised online banking accounts and where to transfer funds from this server. Stolen funds are transferred to the bank accounts of money mules, who take a percentage of the money before sending the rest abroad using wire transfers.

The twist in what is thus far a fairly standard banking Trojan scam, comes in the tactics used by fraudsters to avoid detection, reports net security firm Finjan.

Once the money is stolen, the Trojan creates a forged bank statement to hide the theft. Furthermore the mechanisms of the scam are designed to stay "under the radar" of common anti-fraud systems at banks, Finjan explains.

To minimize detection by anti-fraud systems, the cybergang use various parameters to define the amount of money it will steal on each transaction. Criteria used by this cybergang included: making sure that the victim's balance is positive, ensuring that the amount to be stolen is not too high, setting a random amount on each transaction and making sure that the remaining balance remains positive.

A gang of cybercrooks was able to steal €300,000 ($438,000) from German bank accounts over 22 days using the tactic, Finjan reports. The Israeli-based security firm has turned over its file on the scam to the German authorities.

"To avoid detection, cybercriminals continue to improve their methodologies for stealing money and going under the radar from the victims and banks alike," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO of Finjan. "With the combination of using sophisticated Trojans for the theft and money mules to transfer stolen money to their accounts, they minimize their chances of being detected."

Finjan's latest cybercrime report explains the attack in more depth and goes on to explain how consumers and banks might go about protecting themselves against the new threat.

Other security researchers are taking the threat seriously. Anti-spyware firm Sunbelt, for example, describes the evolution of a Trojan that can display fake bank balances as the "next big [ugly] thing" in banking fraud malware.

[2banana]

The more high tech the world gets, the more I like keeping many things low tech.

[Rutles4Ever]

Remarkable.

I’m thinking mandatory life sentences for cybercrooks would solve this problem.

[theDentist]

Will it still be “ribbed”?

[tm61]

I use a laptop pc, and have a 2nd hard drive that I only use for banking and checking my 401k. no surfing with it, after I’m done with the financial work, it goes back on the shelf and use a another drive for playing on the internet.

[Shaun_MD]

You are more lenient than I would be...

[decimon]

The more high tech the world gets, the more I like keeping many things low tech.

I was doing online banking with a Commodore 128 but no longer feel secure with the practice. A virtue of the Commodore was that the software was firmware, i.e., on a ROM cartridge.

[Redleg Duke]

"I’m thinking mandatory life sentences for cybercrooks would solve this problem."

I would rather see the rack and Iron Maiden be used. Castration would be a nice touch as well.

[ShadowAce]

[tubebender]

I served on the board of directors of a small trade organization in the late 80’s and our management was in the Dallas Tx area that consisted of the two owners of a Trade Publication. We could not get a certified audit and a couple of us were concerned about the financials but nothing got done to do a certified audit. One of the partners had bought a quick print shop on the side and it led to a breakup of them and one agreed to buy out the other. During the process it was discovered that not only was she stealing from the association she had opened 5 bogus bank accounts and was printing bogus bank statements for our two accounts! The bulk of our income was from a large annual trade show and we never found out how much money she stole....

[RichInOC]

Fellas, could you write one for me that raises my bank balances and cuts my loan debts? Kthxbai.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[GOPJ]

I use a laptop pc, and have a 2nd hard drive that I only use for banking and checking my 401k. no surfing with it, after I’m done with the financial work, it goes back on the shelf and use a another drive for playing on the internet.

That's a good solution.

[SouthTexas]

Proves that fraud will always be with us.

[DollyCali]

Mahvelous dalin’ !!!

thanks for pointing me the right direction