New Keylogger Threat Targeting Banks

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

There is a new keylogger threat that is targeting banking institutions, well, currently it target’s Brazilian banks, but, it could affect banks in other countries, and I’m sure there will be other variants specifically targeting the big ones like Chase in the US. It captures mouse clicks as well as keystrokes, so even those banks that use the virtual keyboards will be vulnerable.

PC Tools, creator of award-winning spyware removal and real-time protection software, today warned PC users worldwide about a new variant of the keylogger threat “Trojan.PWSteal.Bancos.Q” that has emerged and is targeting customers of online banking and financial institutions. PC Tools’ Malware Research Center was the first to discover the dangerous new variant, which at this point is primarily affecting customers accessing Brazilian banks, but which PC Tools cautions could affect additional online financial sites worldwide.

Like many keylogger threats, the new variant monitors Internet usage by capturing user keystrokes, in this case when logging into banks and other financial institutions. However, this less common keylogger variant is even more dangerous as it also takes snapshots of the users’ mouse clicks and then sends the captured information via file transfer protocol (FTP) to the Trojan’s author.

Many online banking sites have instituted the use of virtual keyboards in an effort to avoid keylogger infections. With this new keylogger threat variant however, PC Tools cautions that this security measure may not be sufficient since mouse clicks, as well as keystroke activity, can be recorded and captured. Source: Marketwire.

We Say: More info can be found in the Malware Research Center from PCTools. We are going to see more and more of stuff like this, as more and more people get online, it’s so easy for this stuff to spread through new users and people who just don’t care to update their anti virus software, etc. I myself, never, ever login to my bank or paypal on any pc that has been used by someone else, especially kids, as they are more likely to end up on sites that put this stuff on your computer to start with, like in this article where Ben Edelman shows 180solutions targeting children on sites like Dollidol.com. See, I can about always work a mention of 180solutions in about every spyware article I write.