Viruses/Worms News

Zbot or Zeus, enormous botnet threatens with spam and malware

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It's called Zbot or Zeus, a fast-spreading Trojan malware that is infecting PCs worldwide and producing an enormous botnet of zombie computers for sending out malicious spam attacks.

Recent reports of activity by the Zeus botnet point to its ever-changing threats. Spam email messages sent by the botnet and containing the Trojan to infect new users are hitting email in-boxes from San Francisco to London.

Messages warning recipients that their Microsoft Outlook webmail account needs to be reconfigured is part of a malicious phishing attack designed to steal user log-in credentials and to potentially steal their bank account information, too.

Web security company Trend Micro reported on its malware blog that a Zbot variant of the same Zeus Trojan family is spreading itself with spam messages that spoof a recipients email address to make it look as though the email came form within their own company.

Victims of Zeus have included small businesses whose networks are infiltrated by the Trojan. The malware can record passwords from enterprise bank accounts, which the cybercriminals then access to transfer funds.