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)
At last writing, the Microsoft LNK vulnerability that was originally used to target SCADA systems by the Stuxnet worm in Iran, India, and Indonesia was slowly gaining speed and the exploit had a proof-of-concept in the open. Now it is accelerating. It is now being picked up by old virus/worm/malware families and incorporated into their arsenals to take new victims; some using social engineering, some using their own unique tactics. While the exploit method itself hasn’t changed, the exploiters using it are vigorously churning out new versions of their software. I think it’s safe to say Madagascar will be closing its ports soon. (Warning: addictive)
New detected malwares are Chymine, Vobfus, Sality, Zeus, and most recently, Downloader-CJX
