October 31, 2008, 7:58 pm A Huge Cache of Stolen Financial Data By John Markoff NY Times
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/a-huge-cache-of-stolen-credit-cards/?pagemode=print Trying to get a handle on computer crime is always hard, made more difficult by the Alice-in-Wonderland nature of the Internet (On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, etc.). However, each new data point on computer crime and the risks of identity theft appears more frightening. On Friday morning, the RSA FraudAction Research Lab reported it had uncovered a digital cache of more than a half million credit card numbers and online bank account logins and passwords that have been acquired during the past two-and-a-half years by what the researchers believe is a Russian online gang. These caches of stolen identity information are created automatically by digital Trojan horse programs that steal the information from computer users after they have taken over their systems. The Trojans are usually distributed by networks of zombie computers known as botnets. The RSA researchers said that the cache they had discovered had been collected by a program known as the Sinowal Trojan. Sinowal is particularly insidious because it is technically sophisticated. The researchers described the technical evolution of the malware program as disturbing: “Only rarely do we come across crimeware that has been continually stealing and collecting personal information and payment card data, and compromising bank accounts as far back as 2006. And in addition to its longevity, Sinowal has also been evolving at a dramatic pace – its rate of attacks spiked upwards from March through September of this year.” The creators of the Sinowal trojan have been periodically releasing new variants and extending the Internet domains that support the program. The program has the ability to present users with false Web pages that can falsely prompt an unsuspecting victim for personal information such as a social security number or other personal information. The program watches for particular financial Web pages and then launches itself into action to capture personal information, according to the RSA researchers. In the past six months alone it has compromised stolen login credential of more than 100,000 bank accounts, the researchers noted. They said they had contacted several law enforcement agencies about their discovery. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
