Dangerous Trojan Program Found
Over the last few years a large criminal organization has been using a very powerful Trojan program. At this time, it has been able to gather over half a million bank accounts and credit card numbers. The last report stated that it has been active since 2006.
This program runs by monitoring traffic and keying in on banking or financial urls to be entered by the infected computer. Once it triggers, it gets the users information and then sends it back to a central server. Further study revealed that it was not even detected by most antivirus programs.
Security experts believe, as usual, that this system is being run out of Russia. Mainly because Russia was the only country without any infections from this Trojan. Remember to be careful when your going to important websites dealing with money. Alway check the certificates of the site before you log in. Never click a link to your financial institution from an email. It is always better to use your own favorites for your important websites.
What is Spyware ?
As the internet has evolved there has been a dangerous type of malware that has developed. This type of malware is called spyware. When the internet first began, the dangerous applications were called viruses. These programs were either downloaded directly or piggy backed over another application to get onto your computer. Then they would reak havoc on your systems and spread like a common cold virus.
Spyware, just as the term relates, began as a program that monitore’s a users behavior. The actual functions of spyware extend much further than that. With the advancement of spyware, these programs can record your personal information such as bank accounts, passwords, etc. They can also re-direct browsers to download even more dangerous programs for your computer. The dangers these programs can reak on a users computer system is almost un-measurable. The sypare programs have become the number one malware danger for computers and networks even surpassing viruses.
With this danger a new program to fight this problem as emerged. This software is called anti-spyware. This software focuses on spyware and works to prevent these type of attacks from happening. Adaware is one of the first applications on the scene for just protecting against spyware alone. Perimeter firewalls have also introduced these applications at the firewall level integrated in with the virus protection.
One important point. Just because you have an antivirus program installed does not mean you are protected from spyware. Most free av programs do not protect against spyware, so do not get caught in this trap. Most of the more reputable programs such as TrendMicro etc. have spyware built in. Just make sure whatever vendor you are using has this protection.
