The ZeuS Trojan that was employed by cyber crime rings to steal millions of dollars from U.S. banks in fall 2010 appears to be making a comeback. Our SecureIT researchers spotted a 55% increase in ZeuS Trojan or Zbot detections thus far in Q2 2013 versus Q1 2013. The new version of the ZeuS Trojan dubbed a Zbot is a botnet targeted towards stealing your banking information. A botnet is a group of Internet connected devices that communicate with one another and carry out tasks simultaneously. These devices are capable of causing serious mayhem if they’re all instructed to attack a single target, like a bank, at the same time.
(Source: http://www.cabletechtalk.com/technology-devices/botnet-from-criminal-to-target/)
Recently, media sources report the malware has been popping up in Facebook and CareerBuilder through malicious links in viral social posts or marketing ads. Though SecureIT is detecting and stopping these threats, you still need to follow a few basic guidelines:
Be careful about clicking on links in emails, social posts and advertisements. This will help keep you safe from any type of embedded malware.
Check the URL of the link to make sure it’s going to a known URL or doesn’t look phishy. This is tougher to do on smart phones, but it’s worth the extra time to check.
Make sure you trust the source of PDF files you download. Cyber-criminals are exploiting vulnerabilities in this software to deliver malicious code through PDF files.
With malware detections expected to rise 500% over last year, following these few easy steps will help keep you out of harm’s way and your money safe.
