Security research firm M86 Security (no relation) has posted a whitepaper outlining how cyber-criminals started utilizing the Zeus v3 trojan in conjunction with the Eleonore, Phoenix, and Siberia Exploit Kits to siphon £675,000 (~$1.05 million USD) so far from UK victims’ systems that have been compromised. The attack started on July 5th and has continued silently ever since. The main reason why the theft hasn’t been successfully mitigated thus far is because of the Zeus trojan’s extreme difficulty to detect by antivirus solutions. The Zeus trojan, also known as Zbot, PRG, Wsnpoem, Gorhax and Kneber is sold as a kit to people willing to pay a price for the latest code known as Zeus v3. It primarily infects a machine through exploiting un-patched versions of Internet Explorer to gain control.
The Zeus trojan has been known to steal user data in the past, but has never been used in such a direct manner. In the US, there are believed to be 3.6 million infected machines by the malware alone, which makes it arguably one of the world’s most dangerous trojans/botnets in terms of potential damage. The Daily Mail has a good article outlining the exact details.
M86 Security Whitepaper (PDF)
