15 Jun Silent Malware Target Online Banking

As if staying secure on the internet wasn’t hard enough new malware has been found that looks like it will make it even harder. GozNym which has already stolen several million dollars so far is a new piece of Malware targeting user’s online banking using stealth tactics and keylogging tools. Most companies do not like to report the full extent of their breach so the figures could be a lot higher. There are over 1 million web attacks each day. Businesses of all sizes are subject to attacks, no one is not at risk. They silently damage your computer and business.

The new GozNym hybrid takes the best of both the Nymaim and Gozi ISFB malware to create a Super Trojan.

It utilizes the stealth and persistence of the Nymaim malware and the Gozi ISFB capabilities to commit fraud via infected internet browsers. It often appears as “lock (exe)” or “file (exe)”.

The GozNym has been known to target websites belonging to banks, credit unions and e-commerce platforms with the purpose of catching your information. It is known to sit dormant on your PC until one of the targeted sites has been opened by a user and once it has the malware starts to log your keystrokes, this provides the hacker with the ability to perform online banking fraud. The GozNym is very sly using their encryption, anti-VM, anti-debugging routines and control flow obfuscation to stay hidden. The Nymaim malware in which GozNym was designed has been known to install Ransomware on your PC restricting access then requesting payment by Bitcoin.

The virus looks as though it has been distributed via Web-based exploits launched from malicious or already compromised websites. Ransomware continue to invade users and to hold them hostage to gain a profit.

The big question is how to stay secure from these kind of threats? Today’s threats are already different from those 2 months ago, so what can we do?

The first step is ensuring you have Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware and a powerful hardware/software based firewall to keep your network secure. This means whilst the hackers are out creating new malware or viruses to attack your PC the experts are out there working out how to protect you from them. There are security measures that you can make yourself to help including ensuring you are monitoring your account for suspicious or fraudulent activity so that if you have been compromised you can minimize the damage caused. Ensuring you manage your passwords effectively keeping your usual passwords different from your online banking and ensuring you regularly change your password.

Avoiding the use of public computers or public WiFi for online banking. Using 2 computers, 1 computer for surfing the web and another specifically for personal information.

What do you think?